What Happens When a Domain Expires?
When a domain expires it becomes inactive immediately and all the services attached to it cease to function. You can’t make any updates to the domain while it is expired. The domain will remain available for reactivation at your regular domain rate under your list of Expired Domains.
To reactivate an expired domain, take a look at our article on how to renew a domain.
Certain domain names are auto-renew only and cannot be renewed manually. For these domains there is no grace period. Once they’ve expired it’s not possible to recover them.
ICANN TLDs
Grace period
After a domain expires, it enters a grace period. In this period, the domain is disabled but it’s still possible to renew it from the DNSimple account at no extra cost.
Our registrar partners may offer a non-guaranteed 29-day grace period for renewal for most generic top-level domains (gTLDs). There is no guaranteed grace period. Once a domain expires, our registrar partners may dispose of it at any time according to the registration agreement. After the grace period elapses, the domain may go into a redemption grace period.
Renewal years are always added to the end of the current registration period (i.e., the new expiration date is the same whether you renew two months early or the day before expiration), so you will never lose time on your domain by renewing early.
Transferring away expired domain
ICANN’s rules and regulations permit expired generic top-level domains to be transferred to another registrar, provided the domain is still in its grace period. Transfers must complete before the domain falls into its redemption period.
If you need to transfer an expired domain away, please contact us at support@dnsimple.com, or through the contact page, and we’ll help you through the process.
These rules do not apply to country code TLDs (ccTLDs).
Redemption period
After a domain has passed through any applicable expiration grace period, the domain may go into redemption status.
A redemption grace period is provided after the registrar has issued a delete request to the registry. Only the previous registrant can recover the domain during this time, and it must be retrieved through the previous registrar. The Redemption grace period is named differently for some TLDs. The .org equivalent, for example, is “Pending Delete - Restorable.”
Domains in our system can go into either Redemption Grace Period or Extended Redemption Grace Period.
To reactivate a domain in redemption status, please take a look at our article on how to restore a domain.
Deletion period
“Pending Delete” refers to the 5-day time frame after redemption. During this time the registry holds the domain and it cannot be recovered. Once the Registry deletes the domain it’s available on a first-come first-served basis for anyone to purchase as a new domain.
Non-ICANN TLDs
TLDs outside ICANN regulations, such as .UK, .IO, .SH, etc. may not follow the rules mentioned above. They may or may not provide a grace period and a redemption period. If they do, the length of the period may be different.
ccTLDs have special renewal rules and will be renewed before their expiry if our auto renew feature is being used.
Moreover, some TLDs have no additional periods after the expiration and they are immediately deleted.