ICANN

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a nonprofit public-benefit corporation that helps coordinate the Internet’s unique identifiers, including domain names and Internet Protocol numbers. It was formed in 1998, and its principal office is in Los Angeles County, California.

History of ICANN

Anything connected to the Internet has a unique number, called an IP address, which works like a postal address and lets data reach the right device. Because those numbers are hard to remember, the Domain Name System lets people use names made of letters, numbers and hyphens instead. Both kinds of identifier have to be unique worldwide, and ICANN exists to help coordinate them.

ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with a community of participants from around the world. Britannica reports that it was incorporated in California in September 1998 and was set up to take over certain administrative duties for running the Internet from the United States government. Its work includes overseeing top-level domains such as .com, .net and .org. Early offices were in the Marina del Rey area, and its bylaws now place the principal office in Los Angeles County.

The oversight arrangements changed in 2016. ICANN’s bylaws were amended and restated on 1 October 2016, and they now contain articles on a post-transition entity that performs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and on reviews of the IANA naming function. Those articles reflect the transition of IANA stewardship that the bylaws describe.

Structure and membership of ICANN

ICANN describes itself as made up of three parts. The ICANN community is a volunteer-based group of diverse stakeholders from around the world who give advice and develop policy within ICANN’s mission. The ICANN Board is selected by the community and provides strategic oversight. The ICANN organization is the staff that supports the community and Board and carries out the policies the community develops.

The bylaws set out the formal pieces in more detail. They include an Empowered Community, three Supporting Organizations (for addresses, for country-code names and for generic names), several advisory committees and a Nominating Committee. Eight directors on the Board are nominated by the Nominating Committee, the President serves as a director ex officio, and the Board has four non-voting liaisons. The Governmental Advisory Committee gives advice from national governments, and the Board must note when a resolution is consistent with its consensus advice.

The Empowered Community is the sole designator of ICANN. ICANN has no members in the legal sense. ICANN began its 2026 fiscal year with 449 full-time employees and ended it with 454.

What ICANN does

The bylaws state ICANN’s mission as ensuring the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems. In practice it coordinates the allocation and assignment of names in the root zone of the Domain Name System and coordinates policy development for second-level domain registration in generic top-level domains. It also facilitates the operation and evolution of the root name server system.

On the numbers side, ICANN coordinates the top-most allocation of Internet Protocol numbers and Autonomous System numbers. It provides registration services and open access for global number registries as requested by the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Regional Internet Registries, and it works with other standards bodies on the registries their protocols require.

The bylaws also set limits. ICANN may not act outside its mission, and it may not regulate services that use the Internet’s unique identifiers or the content those services carry, beyond the express scope of its mission. The bylaws say ICANN holds no governmentally authorized regulatory authority. Policies are meant to be developed through a bottom-up, consensus-based, multistakeholder process.

Funding and governance of ICANN

ICANN publishes audited statements each year. For fiscal year 2026, which ended on 30 June 2026, the independent audit firm Baker Tilly US issued an unmodified opinion. ICANN reported that its funding increased in line with domain name registrations and that its operating expenses rose because of planned increases in the budget, while staying within budget.

Funds under management, which include all cash and investments, totaled USD 542 million at the end of the year, an increase of USD 7 million. ICANN attributed the rise to investment gains and an operating surplus, partly offset by spending on the New Generic Top-Level Domains Program and by grants.

The Board adopted the FY26 to FY30 Operating and Financial Plan and the FY26 Operating Plan and Budget on 3 May 2025, after 11 months of collaboration among ICANN, the Board, the community and the Public Technical Identifiers Board. The plans covered the year from 1 July 2025, and under the bylaws the Empowered Community could have rejected them.

Accountability and oversight

Because ICANN is a private nonprofit with no governmental regulatory authority, its bylaws devote considerable space to accountability. They include articles on transparency, accountability and review, an Ombudsman, and the Empowered Community, which can consider whether to reject budgets and plans adopted by the Board.

The bylaws are themselves open to revision. The version in force when this entry was written was amended on 3 July 2026, and ICANN publishes a playbook describing how amendments are identified and considered.

Legacy and impact

ICANN states its mission as helping to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. Its contribution is deliberately narrow, covering names and numbers, which must be unique so that computers know where to find each other. The technical protocols that use those identifiers are developed elsewhere, in bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force.

ICANN also says it works with technical partners to help make the Internet work, and its community model, in which volunteers from many stakeholder groups develop policy and a Board oversees strategy, is the way it carries out that role.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue