Verisign, the US company that operates the .com domain registry under an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is raising its wholesale .com fee by 6.9 percent — from $10.26 to $10.97 per domain-year — effective November 1, 2026, according to Domain Name Wire’s April 23, 2026 report on the announcement. At least one retail registrar, NameSilo, has told customers in notices circulating this October that its own .com price is rising by more than double that rate, from $17.29 to $19.99 a year — a gap that shows the markup a commercial domain holder actually pays has far less to do with Verisign’s regulated ceiling than with each registrar’s own margin.

The Number Everyone Is Quoting: $10.26 to $10.97

Verisign’s wholesale .com fee is rising 71 cents, the first change since its prior increase in September 2024, according to Domain Name Wire. On top of that sits the mandatory ICANN transaction fee, rising from $0.18 to $0.20 per registration, renewal or transfer. Together, the floor cost a registrar pays Verisign and ICANN for one .com domain-year climbs from $10.44 to $11.17.

That 71-cent figure is the one domain-industry outlets have reported most widely, and it is the number Verisign itself describes as the maximum it is permitted to charge — registrars remain free to set their retail prices above it, according to Domain Incite’s coverage of the increase.

The Number Nobody Is Quoting: What Registrars Actually Charge

NameSilo’s customer notice, cited by several domain-industry trackers this month, lists its .com registration and renewal price rising from $17.29 to $19.99 — a $2.70 increase, or roughly 15.6 percent, more than double Verisign’s 6.9 percent wholesale move. A comparison published by Best Domain Registrars in October 2026 notes that GoDaddy already lists standard .com renewals above $24.99 a year, well above the new $11.17 wholesale floor, before this round of changes is even applied.

None of this is improper. Registrars are not required to pass through Verisign’s increase at cost, or at all — some may absorb part of it, and Domain Incite reports that pricing above the wholesale ceiling has always been each registrar’s own decision. But it means the figure a business actually sees on its renewal invoice is set almost entirely by registrar strategy, not by the regulated fee that news coverage leads with.

Where the Extra Margin Comes From

A registrar’s retail .com price has to cover more than the Verisign and ICANN pass-through: registration-system infrastructure, customer support, fraud and abuse handling, and the free add-ons — privacy protection, email forwarding, DNS management — that many registrars bundle into a single renewal fee rather than itemize. A registrar competing on brand or support can reasonably charge more than one competing purely on price.

The problem for a buyer is that none of that is disclosed at the point of sale. A business renewing ten .com domains across a mixed portfolio has no easy way to tell whether a given registrar’s price reflects Verisign’s regulated increase, the registrar’s own costs, or simply what the market will bear.

What Four More Years of “Maximum Allowed” Increases Could Cost an ASEAN Portfolio

Verisign’s current agreement with ICANN allows it to raise the wholesale .com fee by up to 7 percent annually in four of the six years of the current pricing cycle, according to Domain Name Wire’s reporting on the contract terms. One analysis published by WebHosting.Today projects the wholesale fee could reach roughly $13.45 by 2029 if Verisign exercises that ceiling every year it is available — a cumulative wholesale rise of about 31 percent from today’s $10.97, before any registrar markup is added on top.

For an ASEAN brand or IP licensing team holding a defensive portfolio of .com domains — country variations, product-line names, common misspellings — that compounding applies to every name in the portfolio, every year, and the registrar-level markup documented above means the retail bill is likely to compound faster still.

What a Domain Holder Should Do Before November 1

Domains renewed before November 1, 2026 at 04:00 UTC are billed at the current pre-increase price for the full term purchased, up to the registrar’s maximum allowed renewal length — commonly ten years — according to registrar renewal notices published this month. For a portfolio of any size, locking in a longer term now is a one-time action that avoids both this increase and, depending on the term length chosen, some number of the annual increases still available to Verisign under its current agreement.

Before doing so, a portfolio manager should request an itemized breakdown from their registrar distinguishing the Verisign and ICANN pass-through from the registrar’s own margin — the two NameSilo figures above show that distinction is not something registrars volunteer, and it is the only way to tell whether a given renewal price is tracking the regulated increase or running ahead of it.

Key takeaways

  • Verisign’s .com wholesale fee rises 6.9 percent, from $10.26 to $10.97, effective November 1, 2026, with ICANN’s own fee rising separately from $0.18 to $0.20.
  • NameSilo’s disclosed retail increase of $2.70, to $19.99, is more than double Verisign’s percentage increase, showing registrar margin — not the regulated fee — drives most of what a buyer actually pays.
  • Verisign’s current agreement permits further 7 percent annual increases in four of the next six years, which one industry projection puts at roughly $13.45 wholesale by 2029 before any registrar markup.
  • Domains renewed before November 1, 2026 at 04:00 UTC lock in today’s price for the full term purchased, making early multi-year renewal the only way to avoid this specific increase.
  • Portfolio managers should request an itemized registrar invoice separating the Verisign and ICANN pass-through from registrar margin before assuming a renewal price simply reflects the wholesale change.