Your website · Updated October 23, 2026
What happens if my domain expires?
Updated October 23, 2026
When your domain expires, your website and email stop working within days, and the name starts a countdown to deletion. For a .com you can usually still renew it for a short grace period, then restore it for an extra fee during a 30-day redemption period. After that anyone can register it. Renew it the day you notice.
Renew it today, in the registrar account that holds it
If your domain has expired, sign in to the registrar account that holds it and renew it now. Every day you wait moves the name closer to a stage where getting it back costs more, and then to a stage where nobody can renew it at all.
If you don't renew your domain, your website and email are the first things to go. ICANN, the body that sets the rules for .com, .net, .org and the other generic domain endings, requires the registrar to cut off the domain's DNS before the name is deleted. Its own page for owners says this causes services "such as a website or email service to no longer work," and that it is meant as a last warning to act. Customers who type your address see an error or a parked page, and email sent to you does not arrive.
The name itself is not gone yet. For a generic domain there is a set path from expiry to deletion, and for most of it you are the only one who can renew. The rest of this page is that path, and what to do at each stage.
Redemption Grace Period
30 days
ICANN requires every generic domain registry to let the owner restore a deleted name for 30 days.
Find out which stage the domain is in
If you are not sure how long ago it expired, check the expiry date in your registrar account, then match it to these stages. They are ICANN's rules for generic domains; the exact days inside them are set by each registrar.
- Before expiry. ICANN requires registrars to send "two renewal reminders one month and one week before" the domain expires, to the email on the registration.
- Auto-Renew Grace Period, up to 45 days. A registrar may hold an expired name for 1 to 45 days and let you renew it, sometimes for a fee. ICANN warns that during this time the name may be offered to others or auctioned, depending on the registrar's terms.
- DNS cut off. Before deletion the registrar must stop the domain from resolving for at least the last eight days you can still renew it, or from the day it expired if it deletes the name sooner. This is when the site and email go dark, if they have not already.
- Redemption Grace Period, 30 days. Once the registrar deletes the name, the registry holds it for 30 days. You can still restore it through the same registrar, usually for a restore fee on top of the renewal.
- Pending delete, 5 days. If nobody restores it, ICANN says the name "will enter into PendingDelete status for 5 days" before it is released.
- Released. After that the name is open to anyone, first come, first served, which includes people who buy expired names to resell them.
Country domains such as .ca, .co.uk or .us are run by their own registries and can follow a shorter or different timeline. If yours is one of them, the registrar's own help page for that ending is the one to read.
For example
One large registrar publishes its own timeline for a .com it holds. Five days after expiry the domain is parked "and any connected website or email will stop working." At 18 days it leaves the owner's account and can only be recovered with a redemption fee. At 26 days it is listed on the registrar's expired domain auction. At 72 days it is removed from the account and can no longer be renewed. Another registrar's days will differ, which is why the date in your own account is the one that counts.
Do I have to renew my domain every year?
You renew it at the end of whatever registration period you paid for, one year or more. ICANN's answer for owners is that "you need to renew the domain name registration prior to its expiration" to keep using the name and the website or email that run on it. ICANN also notes that "most registrars offer auto-renewal option for domain name registrations," which is the simplest way never to miss one.
Get it back, stage by stage
If it expired in the last few days, renew it at the normal price
If the domain is still in your account, renew it from the domain list the same way you would before it expired. At some registrars, including the one in the example above, the first days after expiry still cost the standard renewal price.
- Sign in to the registrar account and find the domain. Many registrars list expired names apart from active ones, so look for an Expired filter or tab if it is not in the main list.
- Renew it, and turn on auto-renew in the same visit.
- Check that the card on file is current, because an expired card is a common reason a renewal fails without anyone noticing.
- Open your website on a phone that is off your office Wi-Fi, then send a test email to your business address from a personal account. Both should come back once the renewal goes through.
If it has moved to redemption, pay the restore fee before the 30 days end
If the domain no longer shows as yours to renew, ask the registrar to restore it. ICANN's answer is plain: "Domain names that are in the 30-day Redemption Grace Period can be redeemed (or renewed)." Only the registrar that deleted it can do the restore, so this has to happen where the domain was registered.
Expect to pay more than a normal renewal. ICANN requires registrars to make their renewal, late renewal and restore fees available when you register, at a minimum by showing them clearly on their website, so you can look up the restore fee on the registrar's own pricing or help pages before you call.
Can I move an expired domain to another registrar instead?
ICANN's answer for owners: "Registrars are not allowed to deny a transfer due to expiration or non-renewal." In practice, if the name is close to deletion, renewing or restoring it where it is first is the safer order, and you can move it to another registrar once it is current again.
If someone else has registered it, plan for a new domain
If the name has been deleted and registered by someone else, it is theirs. Your choices are to ask the new owner whether they will sell it, or to move the business to a new domain.
A judgment, not ICANN's: for most local businesses a new domain is the faster path. Register it in an account the business controls, rebuild or move the site onto it, and update every place the old address appears, starting with your Google Business Profile, your email signatures, your ads and any printed materials you still hand out. The old address can no longer send visitors to the new one, because you no longer control it.
Make sure it never lapses again
Put the domain in the business's own account, with an email someone reads
If a web designer or a former employee registered your domain, move it into a registrar account the business owns, with a business email on it that someone checks every week. ICANN's reminders and the notices after expiry go to the email on the registration, and they do no good in an inbox nobody opens.
Two ordinary ways a domain lapses for a small business: the renewal reminders went to a developer who moved on, or the card on file was a personal card that expired years ago. Both are fixed in one sitting.
For example
A plumbing company's domain was registered by the designer who built its first site, on the designer's account and email. The designer closed that business, the card on file expired, and the reminders went nowhere. The site went to a parked page on a Friday afternoon, and the office learned of it when a customer said the email bounced. Moving the domain to the company's own account with auto-renew on would have prevented all of it.
Check these four things once a year
If you want the domain to renew without anyone thinking about it, check these on the same day each year, such as the day you renew your business license.
- Auto-renew is on for the domain, and for any email or hosting plan that runs on it. A domain renewal does not renew those.
- The card on file is current and is a business card, not a personal one.
- The contact email on the registration is one the business reads.
- The expiry date is in a shared calendar with a reminder a month ahead, as a backstop if a renewal fails.