.dev

Overview

• .dev is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated by Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google Registry).
• Intended for software developers, web developers, development tools, frameworks and libraries.
• The TLD is HSTS-preloaded, which requires HTTPS on all .dev domains.

History

• Delegated to the DNS root zone on 18 December 2014.
• Sunrise (trademark-holder) registrations began in mid-January 2019 (sunrise start recorded as 2019-01-16).
• Early Access Program (descending-price auction) opened on 2019-02-19.
• General public availability occurred in late February / early March 2019 (public availability dates reported as 2019-02-28 to 2019-03-01).
• Registrations recorded: 351,269 domains as of 25 January 2023.

Usage and Audience

• Target audience: software developers, web developers, and organizations building development tools, frameworks, and libraries.
• Actual use includes software engineering projects, development tooling, and code/library hosting or promotion.

Registration Rules

• Trademark-holders were able to register during the Sunrise period (sunrise start noted as 2019-01-16).
• An Early Access Program (descending-price auction) ran beginning 2019-02-19 prior to general availability.
• General Availability opened to the public in late February/early March 2019.
• No additional restrictions, minimum/maximum registration periods, or allowed-character rules are specified in the provided sources.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Inclusion on the HSTS preload list enforces HTTPS for all .dev sites, improving baseline transport security and user trust.
• The HSTS requirement can cause issues for prior internal development workflows that relied on plaintext HTTP for .dev hostnames.

Notable Cases or Examples

• Amazon initially applied for .dev but withdrew its application in July 2014, leaving Google as the remaining applicant.
• .dev was listed among applied-for strings affected by ICANN's Name Collision considerations and was not eligible for an alternative delegation path in November 2013.
• Longstanding informal use of .dev within internal development networks predated the gTLD; after delegation and HSTS-preload inclusion, some internal setups ceased functioning on modern browsers.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       DEV

organisation: Charleston Road Registry Inc.
address:      1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
address:      Mountain View CA 94043
address:      United States of America (the)

contact:      administrative
name:         TLD Admin
organisation: Google Inc.
address:      111 8th Avenue
address:      New York NY 10011
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 404 978 8419
fax-no:       +1 650 492 5631
e-mail:       iana-contact@google.com

contact:      technical
name:         TLD Engineering
organisation: Google Inc.
address:      76 Ninth Avenue, 4th Floor
address:      New York NY 10011
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 404 978 8419
fax-no:       +1 650 492 5631
e-mail:       crr-tech@google.com

nserver:      NS-TLD1.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:32:0:0:0:69 216.239.32.105
nserver:      NS-TLD2.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:34:0:0:0:69 216.239.34.105
nserver:      NS-TLD3.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:36:0:0:0:69 216.239.36.105
nserver:      NS-TLD4.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4802:38:0:0:0:69 216.239.38.105
nserver:      NS-TLD5.CHARLESTONROADREGISTRY.COM 2001:4860:4805:0:0:0:0:69 216.239.60.105
ds-rdata:     60074 8 2 b942e2ce5aebf62fca59d05707e6dbb795211d540d8adba02e9e89e833424785

whois:        

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: https://www.registry.google

created:      2014-11-20
changed:      2025-04-11
source:       IANA