123,320 .lu names: how many domains, and how many businesses?

DNS Luxembourg’s key figures page, dated 15 October 2026, reports 123,320 registered names and 57 accredited registrars. It also lists 10.2% of domains protected by DNSSEC, which authenticates DNS responses, and 0.85% internationalised names, which can include accented characters.

These are registry figures at a particular point in time. They can change. We retain the date shown on the page rather than combine counters collected at different times.

A domain trend, not a business census

The historical series places that snapshot in context. The registry publishes 17 registrations for 1992 and 118,751 for 2025. The chart reproduces its annual values without adding the partial 2026 counter.

Why not read it as a count of businesses online? Imagine one company with a domain for its website, another for an old brand and a third for a campaign. That is three registrations and one business. Another company may use a different extension or only a platform.

The domain total cannot tell us how many businesses have their own domain or how many are “behind”. That comparison would require a defined business population, a period and a matching method. Dividing two totals would be easy; interpreting the result would be much harder.

Monthly activity behind the total

A total is a balance at a date. Monthly operations describe movements: new registrations enter the register, deletions remove domains, and transfers record a change in management according to the source’s classification. A transfer is not evidence of a sale and must not be added to new registrations.

In 2025, the monthly source lists 14,396 creations and 11,637 deletions. Their difference is 2,759 operations. This is a calculation from those monthly figures, not a reconciliation with the annual curve: the published series do not identify their reference dates and adjustment rules precisely enough to equate the two.

The year selector offers 2016–2026. For 2026, only January to September are plotted here. October’s API values conflict with the page text and November–December contain zero placeholders; these have not been treated as completed months. Earlier datasets are archived too, but some contain apparent gaps, including late 2015.

These figures help distinguish growth in the total from the activity behind it. They do not measure business launches, website use, prices or completed sales. Comparing the same months across years is more useful than comparing nine months with a full year.

The same caution applies when choosing a name. The total says little about the availability of names suitable for your project. A short word, an invented name and a descriptive phrase belong to different sets.

Start instead with specific candidates. Check availability through an official service, then existing rights, spoken clarity and email use. Tracking scarcity would require testing the same basket of names at several dates. One snapshot cannot establish a trend.

That is the useful scale for these statistics: they help describe an ecosystem. They can prompt questions about technical practices or support needs. They do not value your domain or justify buying in a hurry.

A transfer between registrars does not establish a sale. A renewal extends an existing registration. A new registration adds a name. Each answers a different question.

Before quoting a figure in a presentation, record what it counts and when it applies. That is often the most useful clarification.