Domain registrar growth in 2025: Behind the data
Which registrars are growing, and what’s driving it?
The prior week, I published my monthly look at how domain name registrars are faring with .com registrations.
Since this data covered December 2025 and concluded the year, I think it’s an interesting time to dig into it a bit more.
A good starting point is to look at how domain registrars did for the year. Here are the top five domain registrars in terms of .com domains under management (DUMs) and how they performed over the past 12 months:
(Note that all of the numbers in this note are for the registrar family. For example, GoDaddy’s numbers include GoDaddy.com, 123-Reg, Mesh Digital, and others.)
DUMs change based on three factors: fresh registrations, deletions, and net transfers.
The total number of fresh registrations is just part of the equation: GoDaddy can lead the chart for adds each month, yet still lose domains under management.
Here’s a leaderboard for which registrars generated the most fresh .com registrations in 2025:
| # | Registrar | 2025 Adds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | GoDaddy | 7,874,063 |
| 2 | Namecheap | 5,259,827 |
| 3 | Squarespace | 2,221,434 |
| 4 | Tucows | 1,815,397 |
| 5 | Hostinger | 1,783,356 |
| 6 | Gname | 1,636,808 |
| 7 | Dynadot | 1,584,481 |
| 8 | Newfold Digital | 1,476,358 |
| 9 | Alibaba | 1,347,538 |
| 10 | IONOS | 1,174,140 |
| 11 | Cloudflare | 865,407 |
| 12 | Wix | 849,661 |
| 13 | Team Internet | 687,317 |
| 14 | TurnCommerce | 654,922 |
| 15 | Porkbun | 612,488 |
If GoDaddy registered nearly eight million domains, how did it lose nearly one million DUMs?
You might be inclined to think it was transfers. In reality, GoDaddy lost regarding as many domains to transfers as it gained; it had a net loss of just 1,374 domains from transfers last year.
(GoDaddy benefits from its expired domain auction platform; when a domain from a partner registrar is won, it transfers to GoDaddy.)
In other words, GoDaddy is losing DUMs since more domains are expiring than are being registered at the registrar. In 2025, its registrars added 7.9 million domains, but 8.9 million expired.
When it comes to transfers, these were the top 10 registrars in 2025 for net transfers in (transfers in minus transfers out).
| # | Registrar | T12M Net Transfers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gname | +889,742 |
| 2 | Namecheap | +248,248 |
| 3 | Cloudflare | +244,903 |
| 4 | Unstoppable Domains | +191,708 |
| 5 | Hostinger | +170,029 |
| 6 | Hefei Juming | +112,923 |
| 7 | Porkbun | +48,299 |
| 8 | Realtime Register | +40,298 |
| 9 | Eranet International | +34,710 |
| 10 | Wix | +32,529 |
Unstoppable Domains punched above its weight, given that it generated regarding 500,000 fresh .com registrations last year. The firm offered a generous transfer special to clients.
Gname is an interesting case, too. It registered 1.6 million fresh .coms in 2025, but had regarding 1.8 million deletes. Transfer gains drove its net growth of 0.8 million DUMs.
These registrars lost the most net transfers in 2025
| # | Registrar | T12M Net Transfers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newfold Digital | -378,512 |
| 2 | Alibaba | -301,977 |
| 3 | Tucows | -253,779 |
| 4 | eName | -132,782 |
| 5 | TurnCommerce | -125,703 |
| 6 | GMO | -124,798 |
| 7 | Squarespace | -72,943 |
| 8 | SAV | -54,889 |
| 9 | Team Internet | -52,050 |
| 10 | NameSilo | -50,237 |
TurnCommerce is the parent firm of DropCatch. Many clients transfer their domains away following winning backorders.
The .com namespace grew last year following some years of decline. As you can see, not all domain registrars benefited equally.
