Summary

  • ICANN priced the implementation part of its 2026 new-domain application fee to recover $70 million from 1,000 applications. Its finance committee heard that roughly 1,600 arrived and about $110 million was collected for that purpose.
  • Staff expects the amount above the implementation need to flow back through an application-volume refund. The guidebook makes eligibility depend on a paid application, the applicant's choice to receive the refund, and the final cost calculation.

The arithmetic has escaped the spreadsheet. Minutes published on 22 October record staff telling ICANN's Board Finance Committee that a fee component designed around 1,000 applications brought in about $110 million when approximately 1,600 applications arrived. The implementation work needed $70 million, staff said. The roughly $40 million difference is the basis of an expected volume refund, rather than another pot for the institution to quietly spend.

The applicant guidebook supplies the less photogenic part of that sentence. Its refund rule requires more than 1,000 applications and recovery of implementation costs. Applicants chose during filing whether to receive a possible volume refund. A declined option forfeits a later claim; only paying applications qualify, and supported applicants receive a refund in proportion to their discounted fee. ICANN calculates the final amount using application volume and final implementation costs. The official fee FAQ keeps this mechanism separate from refunds for withdrawn applications.

The $70 million needed for implementation has its own route home. Staff told the committee that $35 million would replenish the Project Fund and $35 million would replenish the 2012-round application-fee funds used for the work. Elsewhere in the same minutes, the committee recommended moving a separate $20 million FY26 operating surplus into the Project Fund. These are different transactions. Reading them as one giant refund jar would make a fine cartoon and terrible accounting.

Two Board members, James Galvin and Byron Holland, recused themselves from the implementation-reimbursement and volume-refund discussion. The minutes record the recusal without a stated reason. They also record the committee's call for clear communication about the intended use of round funds. The next useful public document is a refund calculation: final implementation cost, the paid and opted-in application count, treatment of discounted applications, and the resulting payment schedule. The fee promise now has a number beside it; applicants need the workings.