Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that its Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) and production environments for Registry System Testing (RST) v2.0 are back online and operational. Organizations using RST v2.0 can resume technical testing as part of the New Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Program: 2026 Round Registry Service Provider (RSP) Evaluation Program.
The OT&E and production environments were taken offline to investigate a technical issue reported to ICANN on 7 October 2025. ICANN resolved the root cause of the technical issue and conducted rigorous system testing to ensure that both environments functioned properly before restoring service.
The date to announce the initial list of successfully evaluated RSPs was originally scheduled for 9 December 2025. Due to the system downtime, this date has been adjusted to Friday, 30 January 2026 to ensure that RSP applicants and ICANN have adequate time to complete the necessary remaining evaluation steps. Organizations will continue to be added to the list according to the RSP Handbook. This adjustment does not change the projected opening of the New gTLD Program: 2026 Round planned for April 2026.
More information about the RST v2.0 technical issue is available in this 29 October announcement.