Dutch domain name market contracts further in first half of 2025
Businesses look critically at asset portfolios in challenging climate
In the first half of 2025, the Dutch domain name market continued to contract. Although some domain name extensions have yet to publish their data, the numbers from market leaders .nl (down 1.55 per cent) and .com (down 5.2 per cent in Q1) provide a clear picture. Those 2 TLDs account for 84 per cent of all names registered in the Netherlands. While the number of Dutch-registered domain names in the new TLDs rose by a very healthy 21 per cent, the absolute number of names involved was relatively small.
Businesses row back
As for the underlying causes, it seems that the current enterprise climate is driving cancellations, as businesses look critically at their online assets, including their domain name portfolios. Another factor is likely to be the rise in the cost of hosting services seen in recent years. Providers have increased prices partly in response to general inflation and higher energy costs. Within the business community, there is also growing awareness of the importance of website and domain name security and a recognition that having a smaller domain name portfolio makes security control more straightforward.
Challenging enterprise climate
Domain name registrations are driven mainly by business activity. We therefore keep a close eye on the data published by Statistics Netherlands and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. In the first half of 2025, the total number of active businesses in the Netherlands increased slightly, by 1.4 per cent, but that was the lowest growth figure in 25 years. The slowdown is attributable mainly to record business closures (up 23 per cent, year on year) in combination with a decline in start-ups (down 17 per cent, year on year).
Those numbers reflect the prevailing economic sentiment. Consumer confidence – another key indicator – is at a very low level. The current minus 36 is well below the long-term average of minus 10. In the face of geopolitical tensions and nervous about the future, consumers are disinclined to loosen their purse strings. As a result, capacity utilisation is down, especially amongst industrial companies, due to a structural mismatch between capacity and demand.
.nl contracts further
The .nl zone showed no sign of recovery in the first half of 2025. In fact, the rate of contraction continued to quicken, from 0.8 and 1.12 per cent in the first and second halves of 2024 to 1.55 per cent in the latest half year. The declining number of domain names is mainly a reflection of widespread cancellations. On the positive side, the number of new registrations was 4 per cent up on the second six months of 2024.
More first-time registrations planned
Those new registrations depend more heavily on people building their first websites, because the intention to register additional domain names is quite weak amongst existing registrants. We know that from the biannual survey that NielsenIQ conducts for SIDN. In 2023, 27 per cent of existing registrants had further registration plans, but the figure is now just 20 per cent. By contrast, 6.6 per cent of respondents who don’t yet have domain names said they intended to register one, compared with 4.5 per cent in 2023.
.com stable in the Netherlands
The worldwide domain name market grew by 1.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2025, which represents a year-on-year increase of 1.7 per cent. The .com extension contracted by 1.3 per cent at the global level in 2024, but was gaining popularity in the Netherlands until recently. Its growth here appears to be partly down to start-ups choosing .com with a view to international expansion, but the marketing activities of .com’s operator Verisign have probably been influential as well.
Outlook for the second half of 2025
Market developments over the months ahead are likely to depend considerably on the number of businesses in the Netherlands. Will the high rate of closures continue, or will we see a recovery? And will the number of start-ups increase? Such macroeconomic factors are difficult to predict, but have major implications for .nl.
