How Many .com Names Appear and Disappear Each Day?

New .com domains appear at a rate of about 180,000 names a day, and about 118,000 names leave the zone. That gives a net gain of 54,000 to 63,000 names a day. We measured this by comparing the daily zone file of the registry with the one from the day before.

How many new .com domains appear in the zone?

On 8 October 2026, 181,367 names appeared in the zone. The day before, 171,094 appeared. So the average of these two days is about 176,000 a day. That is about 7,300 names every hour, or about 120 every minute.

These are early numbers, because our history is short. We keep up to 90 days, so a clearer pattern will build as the days pass. The State of .com page shows the latest figures.

How many .com domains leave the zone each day?

On the same two days, 117,126 and 117,927 names left the zone. That is about 118,000 a day. Two days are too few to call it a pattern, but the two numbers are close.

The names that leave include deleted, expired and held names. The zone cannot tell these apart. So the number of names that leave is larger than the number of names that actually become free to register.

What "appear" really means for new .com domains

A name appears in the zone when it gets nameservers. That includes brand-new registrations. It also includes older names that someone has just pointed to a server. A name can come back from a hold and appear again.

Because of this, the count is not the same as the number of registrations. The registry's own quarterly reports count registrations, and they use a different method. Verisign publishes them in the Domain Name Industry Brief. Use it for the registrations, and use the zone for names that work.

Why the net change matters

Before we go on, keep one limit in mind. The zone shows names that work, so it can lag behind the day of registration by a short time. A name that someone registers in the morning may appear in the next daily file, not in today's.

The net change is the difference between names that appear and names that leave. A positive number means the zone grows. On both days, it grew by more than 50,000.

A steady gain shows that new names outpace losses. That tells you the market is still active. However, one number does not show quality. Many new names are never developed into real sites. For the total size, read our post on how many .com domains there are.

What this means if you hunt for names

Every day, tens of thousands of names return to the pool or leave it. Most are not valuable, but some are. The names that leave the zone are the raw material for the drop.

You can follow the flow in two ways. The Deleted Domains tool shows names that appeared or left since the last snapshot for a word you pick. The Drop Calendar shows names that are about to drop, with an estimated day. Our post on expiring domains puts the odds in perspective.

How we count

We read the zone file once a day and compare it with the previous day's file. A name that is in the new file and not in the old one has appeared. A name in the old file and not in the new one has left.

We only publish totals. The list itself stays private, because the terms of the zone file do not allow us to pass it on. If you want the raw file, you can ask for access yourself through ICANN's Centralized Zone Data Service.

Originally published at namedaemon.com/how-many-new-com-domains-per-day-appear-and-leave/. NameDaemon has 18 free tools for .com names, built on the daily zone file, and the numbers are on the State of .com page.