Problem
A domain expired: what to do, and how long you have left
An expired domain is almost never lost. Between the expiry date and the moment it goes back on sale there is a sequence of stages, and you are standing in one of them.
Renew at the current registrar, now. As long as the name has not entered the redemption period, this is an ordinary renewal payment. After that it becomes a restore, with fees the registrar sets and exactly one door to walk through.
Do this right now
Four moves. The first takes two minutes and decides the other three, so do not pay for anything before you have done it.
Read the domain’s status, not its date
2 minQuery the registry over
RDAPand look at the status field: autoRenewPeriod, redemptionPeriod, pendingDelete. That word tells you what is still possible. The expiry date on its own tells you nothing, because the registry may have auto-renewed the name and pushed the date out a year without anyone paying — that is exactly what autoRenewPeriod means.Renew at the registrar, without going through anyone
5 to 10 minAs long as the name has not been deleted, this is a normal renewal. Registrars are required to publish their renewal, post-expiration renewal and redemption fees on their own website, so you can tell which bracket you are in before you click. If the payment fails, change the card before retrying rather than running the same one again.
If it is already deleted, ask for a restore — from the registrar that deleted it
depends on the registrarDuring the redemption period the registry disables DNS and blocks transfers: nobody except the registrar that requested the deletion can bring the name back, and it is required to let you redeem it. Open the ticket naming the operation — restore, not renewal — and ask in writing how long they will take.
Fix what actually broke
3 minA valid payment method, auto-renew switched back on, and above all the domain’s contact address: that is where expiry reminders are sent, and it is nearly always the link that snapped. Do it while you are still logged in, not “next week”.
What really happens after the expiry date
“The domain expired” is not a moment, it is a sequence of five stages. Each one has its own duration, its own price and its own point of no return. This is the generic top-level domain timeline.
The expiry date has passed
day 0From here the registrar may delete the name at any time. Nothing obliges it to wait. Many leave a few weeks; that is a commercial habit, not a rule you can plan around.
The site goes dark
at least 8 daysICANN requires the registrar to interrupt DNS resolution for at least the last eight consecutive days during which you can still renew. This is when the client calls. The name is still yours.
Deletion by the registrar
date variesThis is no longer a renewal, it is a restore. The price changes, and so does the only door you can use.
Redemption grace period
30 daysThe registry disables DNS and prohibits transfers. Only the registrar that deleted the name can restore it, at your request. Whois shows the redemptionPeriod status: that is your countdown.
pendingDelete
5 daysNothing can be done. At the end of those few days the name is purged from the registry database and becomes registrable again under that registry’s rules.
Sources: ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy (§ 2.2.1, § 2.2.3, § 3.1 to § 3.3) and the ICANN EPP status codes reference. These rules apply to generic extensions — .com, .net, .org, .app. Country-code registries run their own clock; the table below shows one of them.
A country registry runs a different clock
France’s .fr makes the difference easy to see. For a generic extension the countdown starts at expiry; for .fr it starts at the deletion requested by the registrar. That is not a wording detail, it is a month of difference.
- RenewalGeneric extensionPaid at every term; the registry may auto-renew and the registrar bills you.France’s .fr (Afnic)Tacit: the name renews unless the registrar sends a deletion request.
- Where the countdown startsGeneric extensionAt the expiry date.France’s .fr (Afnic)At the deletion date requested by the registrar.
- Redemption periodGeneric extension30 days after deletion.France’s .fr (Afnic)30 days after deletion, triggered automatically.
- Who can bring it backGeneric extensionThe registrar that deleted it, at your request.France’s .fr (Afnic)The registrar that manages the name, through a restore operation.
- What Whois shows youGeneric extensionStatus redemptionPeriod, then pendingDelete.France’s .fr (Afnic)Status redemption, a pending delete, and the date the deletion was requested.
Sources: ICANN (Expired Registration Recovery Policy, EPP status codes) and Afnic (naming policy of 5 May 2025, article 48; technical and operational procedures guide, delete and restore operations). Worth knowing: a deletion issued by Afnic itself, or one during the grace period that follows creation, triggers no redemption at all — the name goes straight back on sale.
What you write to the client
The client will ask two things: is it gone, and is it your fault. Answer the first before they get to the second.
Subject: Your domain name — being brought back online
Hello,
Your site’s domain name reached its expiry date, and both the site and the email addresses attached to it have been unreachable since [time]. The name is not lost: it is still yours and it can be recovered.
I am renewing it today. The site and the mailboxes usually come back within the hour, sometimes a little longer while servers around the world pick up the new information.
So that this does not happen again, I need two things from you: a valid payment method on the registrar account, and an email address someone actually reads for the renewal reminders. That address is where the warnings were sent, and nobody saw them.
I will confirm as soon as everything is back.
The brackets mark what you replace. Two principles hold this message together: you say it is recoverable before you explain why it happened, and you ask for exactly one thing in return — the thing that prevents a repeat.
Why it happened
Nine times out of ten this is not a forgotten date. It is an expired card on an account nobody opens any more. Auto-renew was switched on the whole time; it simply failed, and the declined payment landed in a mailbox nobody empties.
ICANN does require registrars to warn people. Two notices before the date — one roughly a month ahead, one roughly a week ahead — and a third within five days of expiry if the name has been neither renewed nor deleted, that one carrying renewal instructions. Three warnings, then.
All three go to the same place: the registrant address captured on the day the domain was bought. Often a director’s personal inbox, sometimes an intern who left years ago. The person who is warned is not the person who can act, and no amount of extra reminders fixes that.
How to avoid it next time
Three habits, in this order. Check that the payment method on the registrar account is valid and does not expire before the next renewal — that is the part that breaks. Put a team-monitored address on the domain contact, not somebody’s personal inbox. And keep a written record of who owns what, at which registrar.
Then watch the date from the outside, at the registry, rather than from the registrar dashboard. An account can show “auto-renew active” while the charge failed a month ago: the setting is still there, the payment is not.
And raise the alarm early. Thirty days out, a renewal is a five-minute formality. Three days out, it is an evening, a support ticket and a client on the phone.
Read the real date, the one at the registry
The tool queries the registry over RDAP and returns the expiry date exactly as it is written there, along with the registrar and the declared name servers. No account, no limit.
A renewal date should never be a surprise.
DomainVigil rereads the expiry date at the registry every day, for every domain of every client, and warns you at sixty, thirty and seven days. Five domains free, with no time limit.
Five domains free, forever. No card required.