Domainvane

What happens when a domain name expires

Corrections: support@domainvane.com

Expiration is a date in a record, and there are two

A domain name is not a certificate, and it does not "SSL-expire." The registration is a contract with a registrar for a term. When that term ends, what happens next depends on the registrar's settings, the registry's grace periods, and whether anyone pays.

For generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .com, ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy sets a floor. It does not set one calendar that every registrar follows. Two dates in particular get confused:

  • The registry expiry is the date the registry (the operator of the TLD) holds.
  • The registrar expiration is the date the registrar shows for the customer's term.

ICANN told registrars on 30 September 2025 that both dates are registration data, and that they are allowed to differ. The case ICANN calls out is the one agencies hit: the registry has auto-renewed the name and charged the registrar, while the registrar has not yet been paid by the registrant, so the registrar's date is still the old one. In RDAP, the registry date is an event with action expiration. The registrar date is an event with action registrar expiration. ICANN's Registration Data Policy requires the registrar expiration in registrar RDAP responses. Publishing the registry expiry is optional for the registrar.

If you check one screen and your client checks another, you can both be quoting a real field. Write down which field you read.

Where the date comes from

For ICANN-contracted gTLD registries and registrars, RDAP became the definitive Registration Data Directory Service on 28 January 2025. That change does not mean WHOIS was sunset for every domain.

RDAP represents dates as events and can distinguish registry expiration from registrar expiration. That distinction is why the two dates described above can both be real.

Country-code TLDs are outside that gTLD sunset. RDAP coverage there is uneven. A careful check says the TLD returned no RDAP expiry, rather than treating a WHOIS line as the same fact.

For the account-based lookup, its possible results, and the signup path, see the domain expiry checker. Domainvane does not provide an anonymous RDAP lookup.

The order of operations after the date passes

ICANN's registrant explainer for the Expired Registration Recovery Policy, and the policy text updated 21 February 2024, describe the gTLD path in stages. Sponsored gTLDs are called out as an exception to the redemption requirement. Everything below is the gTLD policy, not a promise about .uk or any other country-code TLD.

Notices. The registrar must send at least two renewal notices before expiration: one about a month before, one about a week before. If the name is not renewed and not deleted within five days after expiration, the registrar must send at least one more notice, with instructions for renewing. Notices go to the registrant email address in the registration data. An agency that is not that contact will not see them. A client who never updates the email after a staff change will not see them either.

Auto-renew grace period. If the registrar does not delete the name immediately, it may offer an auto-renew grace period of 1 to 45 days starting at expiration. "May" is the policy's word. The length and the fee are in the registrar's terms, not in a single ICANN number. During this window the name can sometimes be renewed by the original registrant. Depending on those terms, the name may also be offered to someone else or auctioned. Read the terms for the registrar that actually holds the name. Do not plan around "everyone gets 30 days of grace." That sentence mixes this optional window up with the next stage.

DNS interruption. The policy requires disruption of the domain's DNS for a period of up to 8 days before the registrar deletes it, and the registry disables DNS during redemption. The point of the disruption is to make the failure obvious: the site and mail stop, which is a late signal that the name has expired. It is a bad signal to wait for. It arrives after the date, and it looks like a hosting outage until someone checks the registration.

Redemption grace period. With the exception of sponsored gTLD registries, gTLD registries must offer a redemption grace period of 30 days immediately after the registrar deletes the registration. During those 30 days the registry disables DNS resolution and refuses normal transfers. The original registrar can restore the name at the registrant's request. Restores are commonly billed at a higher fee than a normal renewal. The fee has to be published; the amount is the registrar's. If you are in redemption, you deal with the registrar that deleted the name. Another registrar cannot pick it up as a fresh registration yet.

Pending delete. If the name is not restored, it enters pending delete for 5 days. ICANN's renewal FAQ states that after pending delete the name is released and can be registered by someone else on a first-come basis. At that point the old registrant has no policy right to the string.

Redemption starts at deletion, not when the invoice date flips. A name can sit in auto-renew grace for weeks, or a registrar can delete quickly. The status the registry publishes, plus the registrar's terms, is how you tell which stage you are in.

What this means for a list of client domains

A spreadsheet cell that says "expires 12 Nov" is incomplete unless it also says which clock. Registry expiry, registrar expiration, and the date printed on last year's invoice can all be different, especially in the days after a term ends and the registry has auto-renewed.

Checking the cell once a year matched the old habit of annual registrations. It does not match a book of names where the person who receives ICANN's required notices is the client's former office manager. The notice rule is real. It still depends on an inbox the agency may not control.

A useful check has four properties:

  • it uses RDAP for gTLDs, and it can say unknown for a TLD that does not answer
  • it records registry versus registrar when both exist
  • it repeats on a schedule, because grace periods are measured in days
  • it alerts a person at the agency, not only the registrant contact in the RDAP record

Grace and redemption are registry and registrar policy. A monitoring product that shows you the RDAP date is not computing your redemption deadline for you, and it should not invent one. When the date is missing, "unknown" is the honest result.

Domainvane shows alert state on the dashboard at 30, 14, 7, and 1 days before the RDAP expiry it actually stored, and it labels the provenance. Email alerts are delivered to external inboxes, including Gmail. Inbox placement is not guaranteed for every provider (Outlook and Yahoo have not been tested). If you want the date checked on a schedule instead of the next time someone remembers the spreadsheet, add the hostname to an account.

Monitor domain expiry in Domainvane. Free covers three hostnames. The product will not renew the name for you. It will tell you which date it saw, and when it could not see one.

Sources

Checked 2026-09-25.

  • ICANN, "Launching RDAP; Sunsetting WHOIS," 27 January 2025 (RDAP definitive for gTLD registration data as of 28 January 2025). https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/icann-update-launching-rdap-sunsetting-whois-27-01-2025-en
  • ICANN, notice on rogue WHOIS servers, 24 January 2025 (WHOIS sunset date 28 January 2025; no authoritative-server discovery in WHOIS). https://www.icann.org/en/contracted-parties/advisories/notice-rogue-whois-server-exploit-24-01-2025-en
  • ICANN, registrar advisory, "Registrar Registration Expiration Date," 30 September 2025 (registry expiration versus registrar registrar expiration; the dates may differ when the registry has auto-renewed). https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/contracted-parties-communications/registrar-registration-expiration-date-30-09-2025-en.pdf
  • ICANN, Expired Registration Recovery Policy, updated 21 February 2024 (30-day redemption grace period after deletion for gTLD registries other than sponsored TLDs; DNS disabled during redemption). https://www.icann.org/en/contracted-parties/consensus-policies/expired-registration-recovery-policy/expired-registration-recovery-policy-21-02-2024-en
  • ICANN, "5 Things every Domain Name Registrant should know about the ERRP" (two notices before expiry, one within five days after if not renewed; auto-renew grace period of 1–45 days if the registrar offers it; 30-day redemption; DNS disruption). https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registrant-about-errp-2018-12-07-en
  • ICANN, "FAQs for Registrants: Domain Name Renewals and Expiration" (pending delete of 5 days after redemption, then release). https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/domain-name-renewal-expiration-faqs-2018-12-07-en
  • RFC 9083, JSON Responses for RDAP (events, eventAction, eventDate, future-dated expiration). https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9083
  • RFC 9082, RDAP Query Format. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9082
  • RFC 3912, WHOIS Protocol Specification. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3912