How renewal works
A domain is rented from a registry (Nominet for .uk, Verisign for .com) through a registrar, for one to ten years at a time. Before the expiry date, the registrar emails the registrant contact and, if auto-renew is on, charges the card on file. If neither happens, the domain expires on the date shown at the registrar, and the clock in the next section starts.
- Log in to the registrar. If you do not know which, look the domain up on WHOIS; the registrar is named.
- Find the domain and its expiry date. Note it in your business calendar with a reminder a month before.
- Turn on auto-renew, and check the card on file expires after the domain does.
- Renew for several years if the business is not going anywhere; multi-year removes the annual chance to forget.
- Make sure the registrant email is one you will still have in five years and that someone reads.
- Turn on registrar lock so it cannot be transferred away without your confirmation.
What happens if it expires
| .uk (Nominet) | .com (Verisign, via your registrar) | |
|---|---|---|
| On expiry | Domain enters a 30-day grace period; the registrar may suspend the site and email immediately | Registrar typically suspends within days; a grace period of up to about 45 days follows, registrar-dependent |
| During grace | Renewable at the normal price through your registrar | Renewable at the normal price, usually |
| After grace | Suspended; then at 90 days after expiry the domain is cancelled and released for anyone to register | A 30-day redemption period at a materially higher fee; then a short pending-delete window; then released |
| Can someone else take it? | After release, yes, and expired business domains are routinely bought by speculators | After release, yes; the same market exists |
Source: Nominet .uk renewal and expiry policy; ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy and registrar practice for .com. Registrars may vary the early steps; the release points are the registry’s.
The practical point: an expired domain is recoverable for a few weeks at normal cost, for a few more at a higher cost, and then it is gone. Businesses that lose a domain almost always lost it because nobody saw the emails.
The two ways renewal fails
- The card expired, or the emails went to an old address. The registrar tried; nobody heard. Fix: a current card, a monitored email that is not at the domain itself, and a calendar reminder independent of the registrar.
- Someone else is the registrant. Your web designer, a former employee, a supplier who set it up years ago, and they did not renew. Fix: get the domain into your business’s name now, while you can ask nicely. The domain guide covers how to check who the registrant is.
If it has already expired
- Log in to the registrar today and renew. In the grace period this is the normal price.
- If the registrar shows redemption or a recovery fee, pay it. It is far cheaper than a new domain, a new email address and a search reputation started from zero.
- If the domain has been released and someone else has registered it, you can try to buy it from them, or begin again on a new domain with redirects from wherever you still control. Nominet and ICANN dispute processes exist for bad-faith registrations of a trading name, but they take months.
- Then fix the two causes above so it does not happen again.
