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Happy Birthday, .uz!!
Uzbekistan’s national digital infrastructure operator UZINFOCOM celebrated its 24th anniversary on July 29, 2026, at a time when the country’s .UZ domain namespace is recording some of its strongest growth to date.
UZINFOCOM was established in 2002 and has grown into one of the central organizations supporting Uzbekistan’s government information systems, online public services and national digital infrastructure.
In its anniversary announcement, the organization highlighted the people behind its projects, describing a team of specialists working to make government services, business processes and everyday digital services more convenient for millions of users.
For the domain industry, UZINFOCOM is particularly important because it administers Uzbekistan’s national country-code top-level domain, .UZ.
UZINFOCOM and .UZ have different anniversaries
Although UZINFOCOM has now turned 24, the .UZ extension itself is considerably older.
The .UZ top-level domain was created and entered into the IANA root on April 29, 1995. It celebrated its 31st anniversary earlier this year.
UZINFOCOM became the administrator of Uzbekistan’s .UZ domain zone on March 27, 2003, less than one year after the organization was established.
This means UZINFOCOM has now been responsible for the national domain for more than 23 years.
.UZ passes 161,000 active domain names
The anniversary comes during a particularly strong period for the .UZ registry.
According to the official registry statistics recorded on July 30, 2026, the namespace contained:
New registrations have exceeded deletions by 17,592 domains during 2026 so far.
The registry’s stated reference figure at the beginning of the year was 143,785 domains. The current active total therefore shows how quickly the namespace has expanded during the first seven months of 2026.
Three major milestones in less than one year
The recent growth becomes clearer when looking at the registry’s public milestone announcements:
The namespace therefore added more than 20,000 registrations between the 140,000-domain announcement in August 2025 and the 160,000-domain milestone in July 2026.
It took approximately seven months for .UZ to move from 140,000 to 150,000 domains, but only around four more months to reach 160,000.
The official registry attributed the expansion to increasing interest from businesses, government organizations and individual users in Uzbekistan’s national domain space.
Short .UZ domains are already heavily represented
Registry statistics also provide an interesting view of the length of registered .UZ domain names.
At the time of writing, the zone contained:
The presence of 1,295 active two-character domains indicates that the shortest part of the namespace is already highly occupied.
Three-character domains are also a significant category, with almost 19,000 active registrations. For domain investors interested in short .UZ names, deleted-domain auctions and registrar drop activity may consequently become increasingly important.
The registry reports that its busiest single day remains December 21, 2017, when 15,075 domains were registered. Its strongest month was January 2025, with 17,820 registrations.
DNSSEC adoption remains an area for development
Only 259 of the approximately 162,000 active .UZ domains are currently reported as using DNSSEC.
That represents roughly 0.16% of the active namespace.
The number remains relatively small, although the registry has been working on DNSSEC automation and the automatic publication of DS records. Wider adoption by registrars, hosting providers and domain holders could become an important part of the next stage of the namespace’s development.
Investment in IPv6, blockchain and registry infrastructure
UZINFOCOM has been expanding .UZ beyond traditional domain registration services.
During 2025, the registry reported work in several areas:
The DNS node in Kazakhstan supports both IPv4 and IPv6 and was introduced through cooperation between UZINFOCOM and Kazakhstan’s .KZ administrator, KazNIC. The additional infrastructure is intended to improve geographical distribution, availability and resilience across Central Asia.
Token.uz has meanwhile been positioned as part of the registry’s effort to create a more transparent and verifiable domain-management environment using blockchain technology.
A developing .UZ aftermarket
The registry’s expired-domain auction system is also beginning to generate measurable aftermarket activity.
In January 2026, HUB.UZ sold through the official domain auction for 17,893,500 UZS, setting a new record for the platform at the time.
The auction structure was reorganized during 2025 into categories covering two-character domains, three-character domains and premium names.
For a national namespace of approximately 162,000 domains, the combination of double-digit registration growth, highly occupied short-name categories and an organized expired-domain auction represents an important development.
.UZ is still a relatively compact national namespace, but its recent numbers show increasing local demand and a registry investing in the technical and commercial infrastructure needed for its next phase of growth.
Sources
Uzbekistan’s national digital infrastructure operator UZINFOCOM celebrated its 24th anniversary on July 29, 2026, at a time when the country’s .UZ domain namespace is recording some of its strongest growth to date.
UZINFOCOM was established in 2002 and has grown into one of the central organizations supporting Uzbekistan’s government information systems, online public services and national digital infrastructure.
In its anniversary announcement, the organization highlighted the people behind its projects, describing a team of specialists working to make government services, business processes and everyday digital services more convenient for millions of users.
For the domain industry, UZINFOCOM is particularly important because it administers Uzbekistan’s national country-code top-level domain, .UZ.
UZINFOCOM and .UZ have different anniversaries
Although UZINFOCOM has now turned 24, the .UZ extension itself is considerably older.
The .UZ top-level domain was created and entered into the IANA root on April 29, 1995. It celebrated its 31st anniversary earlier this year.
UZINFOCOM became the administrator of Uzbekistan’s .UZ domain zone on March 27, 2003, less than one year after the organization was established.
This means UZINFOCOM has now been responsible for the national domain for more than 23 years.
.UZ passes 161,000 active domain names
The anniversary comes during a particularly strong period for the .UZ registry.
According to the official registry statistics recorded on July 30, 2026, the namespace contained:
- 161,953 active domain names
- 897 domains pending activation
- 38,889 new registrations since the beginning of 2026
- 21,297 deleted domains during the same period
- 12.2% reported growth since the beginning of the year
- 259 domain names using DNSSEC
New registrations have exceeded deletions by 17,592 domains during 2026 so far.
The registry’s stated reference figure at the beginning of the year was 143,785 domains. The current active total therefore shows how quickly the namespace has expanded during the first seven months of 2026.
Three major milestones in less than one year
The recent growth becomes clearer when looking at the registry’s public milestone announcements:
- 140,000 domains were passed in August 2025
- 150,000 domains were passed on March 13, 2026
- 160,000 domains were passed in July 2026
The namespace therefore added more than 20,000 registrations between the 140,000-domain announcement in August 2025 and the 160,000-domain milestone in July 2026.
It took approximately seven months for .UZ to move from 140,000 to 150,000 domains, but only around four more months to reach 160,000.
The official registry attributed the expansion to increasing interest from businesses, government organizations and individual users in Uzbekistan’s national domain space.
Short .UZ domains are already heavily represented
Registry statistics also provide an interesting view of the length of registered .UZ domain names.
At the time of writing, the zone contained:
- 1,295 active two-character domains
- 18,925 active three-character domains
- 8,949 active four-character domains
- 12,391 active five-character domains
- 16,269 active six-character domains
The presence of 1,295 active two-character domains indicates that the shortest part of the namespace is already highly occupied.
Three-character domains are also a significant category, with almost 19,000 active registrations. For domain investors interested in short .UZ names, deleted-domain auctions and registrar drop activity may consequently become increasingly important.
The registry reports that its busiest single day remains December 21, 2017, when 15,075 domains were registered. Its strongest month was January 2025, with 17,820 registrations.
DNSSEC adoption remains an area for development
Only 259 of the approximately 162,000 active .UZ domains are currently reported as using DNSSEC.
That represents roughly 0.16% of the active namespace.
The number remains relatively small, although the registry has been working on DNSSEC automation and the automatic publication of DS records. Wider adoption by registrars, hosting providers and domain holders could become an important part of the next stage of the namespace’s development.
Investment in IPv6, blockchain and registry infrastructure
UZINFOCOM has been expanding .UZ beyond traditional domain registration services.
During 2025, the registry reported work in several areas:
- Automated publication of DNSSEC DS records
- IPv6 support on newly deployed DNS infrastructure
- Deployment of an additional .UZ DNS node in Kazakhstan
- Development of the Token.uz blockchain platform
- NFT-based certificates connected to .UZ domain ownership
- Expansion and restructuring of the expired-domain auction system
The DNS node in Kazakhstan supports both IPv4 and IPv6 and was introduced through cooperation between UZINFOCOM and Kazakhstan’s .KZ administrator, KazNIC. The additional infrastructure is intended to improve geographical distribution, availability and resilience across Central Asia.
Token.uz has meanwhile been positioned as part of the registry’s effort to create a more transparent and verifiable domain-management environment using blockchain technology.
A developing .UZ aftermarket
The registry’s expired-domain auction system is also beginning to generate measurable aftermarket activity.
In January 2026, HUB.UZ sold through the official domain auction for 17,893,500 UZS, setting a new record for the platform at the time.
The auction structure was reorganized during 2025 into categories covering two-character domains, three-character domains and premium names.
For a national namespace of approximately 162,000 domains, the combination of double-digit registration growth, highly occupied short-name categories and an organized expired-domain auction represents an important development.
.UZ is still a relatively compact national namespace, but its recent numbers show increasing local demand and a registry investing in the technical and commercial infrastructure needed for its next phase of growth.
Sources
