Domains and WHOIS

How do I transfer a domain to another registrar?

A transfer is five steps and about a week, and the two things that derail it are both knowable in advance: the 60-day lock and an unreachable registrant email address.

Unlock the domain at your current registrar, request the authorisation code (also called the EPP or auth code), start the transfer at the new registrar and pay, then approve the confirmation email sent to the registrant address. The losing registrar has five calendar days to acknowledge; if it does nothing, the transfer completes automatically. The whole process takes five to seven days, and the transfer adds a year to the registration rather than resetting it — you do not lose the time you already paid for.

Worked out 2026-09-10 (IST) · ICANN Transfer Policy, generic TLDs

The five steps

Domain transfer, start to finish
Step	Where	What to do	Typical time
1. Check eligibility	Old registrar	Confirm the domain is over 60 days old and not within 60 days of a transfer or contact change	Minutes
2. Unlock	Old registrar	Turn off the registrar lock — clientTransferProhibited disappears from WHOIS	Minutes
3. Get the auth code	Old registrar	Request the EPP / authorisation code. Some registrars email it to the registrant address only	Minutes to 1 day
4. Start and pay	New registrar	Enter the domain and auth code, pay for one year	Minutes
5. Approve	Registrant email	Click the confirmation link. If nobody acts, it completes anyway after 5 days	5–7 days

Verify the registrant email BEFORE you start

This is the step that costs people a week. The approval goes to the registrant email in the registration record, which after GDPR you cannot read from public WHOIS — you have to check it inside your registrar account. If it is an address at a domain you no longer own, or an ex-employee’s mailbox, fix it first. But note the trap: changing the registrant email is itself a change that triggers the 60-day transfer lock, so make the change, wait out the lock, then transfer.

The 60-day lock, in full

What starts a 60-day transfer lock
Trigger	Can you opt out?
Initial registration of the domain	No
Transfer between registrars	No
Change of registrant name, organisation or email	Yes — but only at the moment you make the change
Restore from redemption	Registry-dependent; often yes

When a registrar may legitimately refuse

The domain is within 60 days of registration or of a previous transfer.
There is evidence of fraud, or a UDRP or court proceeding is open.
The registrant has not paid for the current term.
The domain is locked at the registry with a server* code.

“We will not release it until you speak to retentions” is not on that list. If a registrar stalls without one of these reasons, ICANN operates a Transfer Dispute Resolution process, and a complaint through it tends to be resolved quickly.

Sources: ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement 2013, ICANN Transfer Policy, ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy, ICANN Registry Agreement Specification 4 (RDAP), IETF RFC 9083 and RFC 5731 (EPP status codes), and the EU General Data Protection Regulation as applied by ICANN’s Registration Data Policy.

Check your own numbers

Confirm the domain is unlocked and the registrar has actually changed.

WHOIS LookupRegistrar, dates, name servers and status codes for any domain.

Frequently asked

Why does my registrar say the domain cannot be transferred for 60 days?

ICANN's Transfer Policy imposes a 60-day lock after a domain is first registered, after it is transferred between registrars, and - the one that surprises people - after any change to the registrant name, organisation or email. You can usually opt out of the last one at the time you make the change; you cannot undo it afterwards. Plan contact changes for after the transfer, not before.

Will my website go down during a transfer?

It should not. A transfer moves who bills you and who manages the record; it does not change the name servers, so DNS keeps answering throughout. The risk is that some registrars replace name servers with their own defaults on completion - check the NS records immediately after and set them back if they changed.

Do I lose the time left on my registration?

No. A transfer requires the gaining registrar to add one year, and that year is added on top of the remaining term. A domain with seven months left becomes a domain with nineteen months left. The only registration time genuinely at risk is time beyond the ten-year maximum, which is rare.

The transfer failed and I do not know why. What now?

Work through the five common causes in order: the domain is still locked; the auth code was wrong or has expired; the domain is inside a 60-day lock; the registrant email in WHOIS no longer works so the approval never arrived; or the domain is within 15 days of expiry and the losing registrar refused. Each one is visible before you start except the email, which is why you check it first.

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