The .fail Domain: An Address That Owns the Mistake
.fail was recorded in the root zone on 17 April 2014 and is operated by Binky Moon, LLC. The nTLDstats page accessed on 11 August 2026 shows 5,197 registrations in the zone, of which 4,277 appear in the zone file. A publication rate near 82% is strikingly high for a zone this small.
Because the word is a negative one, it gets used two ways. The first is deliberate: post-mortem archives, outage status pages and the blameless review write-ups engineering teams publish. The second is defensive registration. To see whether your brand is still free here, check it in a .fail domain search.
The zone is small, so the vast majority of brand names remain unregistered — and an address with this association becomes an awkward problem to unwind once an unhappy customer holds it. The practical approach: check your brand under this ending, register and redirect it to your main address if it is free, and find out who holds it if it is not. One annual line item costs far less effort than a dispute process opened after the fact.
.FAIL Domain at a Glance
- Sponsoring organisation Binky Moon, LLC
- Root zone record 17 April 2014
- Eligibility condition No verified restriction
- Registered names 5,197 (nTLDstats, 11 August 2026)
- Present in the zone file 4,277 names, about 82%
- Document Requirement There are no requirements for buying .fail domain registration
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.fail Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
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New Registration
$12.90 / years -
Transfer
$38.99 / years -
Renewal
$41.99 / years -
Restore
$129.90 -
Late Renewal
$6.29
Included With Every .fail Domain
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Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.fail Domain Lifecycle
Domain lifecycle
The stages in order, from registration to releaseDomain Is Available (Available)
A .fail address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete the domain is yours for the term you chose. You can renew at any point before expiry to keep it uninterrupted, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Redemption Period (Redemption Period)
The domain is not released the moment it expires — during this window it is still yours and can be recovered. Some extensions charge an extra restore fee at this stage, so renewing before expiry is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete Period (Pending Delete Period)
If the redemption window is missed too, the domain enters the final stage and waits to be deleted. Renewal and recovery are no longer possible here; when the period ends the registration is removed for good.
Domain Is Available Again
Once deletion completes, the domain leaves the system and anyone can register it — popular names are often taken the same minute by someone watching. Keep auto-renewal on so a name you care about never gets this far.
.fail Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.fail Domain Registration
- Document Requirement There are no requirements for buying .fail domain registration
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.fail Domain Support
- IDN Support No
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
.fail Domain Registration Periods
- Registration Periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 years
- Renewal Periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 years
- Pre-registration 1 days
- Accounting Period 45 days
- Finalization Period 1 days
- Failure Period 45 days
- Payment Period 45 days
- Redemption Period 30 days
- Deletion Hold Period 30 days
- Renewal Time 30 Day
Frequently Asked Questions About .fail Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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Not compulsory, but in a zone this small it is an inexpensive precaution.
The association is unflattering, so an unhappy customer can register your brand here, and reclaiming that address afterwards takes time you would rather spend elsewhere. With 5,197 registrations the zone is small, and most brand names remain free. Check which endings still have yours available in a bulk domain name search.
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Yes, and that is one of the established uses in this zone.
Software teams publish their incident reviews openly: what broke, why it broke and what changed afterwards. That archive is genuinely useful internally for not repeating the same mistake, and it reads as maturity from the outside. The address describes the subject of the page in a single word, which suits the content well.
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Because when your main infrastructure goes down, the status page must not go with it.
Running the status page on a different address and different hosting keeps one communication channel alive precisely when you need it. Users learn what is happening from there instead of flooding the support queue. Look at separate hosting arrangements on the hosting page.
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4,277 of 5,197 names appear in the zone file, which comes to about 82%.
That is high for a small zone. The plausible reading: people who choose this ending deliberately usually have a specific purpose and publish quickly, and even defensive registrations often show in the zone file because they redirect to a main address. The measurement comes from the nTLDstats breakdown on the date of access.
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The domain system has its own dispute procedures for exactly this situation.
A complaint can be filed against a name that infringes your trademark and was registered in bad faith. What decides the outcome is the scope of your registered rights and how the other party is using the name. As a first step, check who holds the registration in a whois search.
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None. The registry sets no eligibility condition and does not vet content in advance.
Binky Moon, LLC's policy set carries no document or status requirement for this ending, and names go first come, first served. Responsibility for what you publish stays with you regardless — worth weighing before you build a page aimed at another organisation.
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