What Happens When a Domain Expires: The Full Timeline (gTLD and .au)

When a domain expires, nothing much happens for a while. The owner keeps a right to renew for weeks, the registrar may quietly auction the name in the meantime, and then the registry locks it, holds it for a month and purges it. Only at that last step can anyone else register it. For a .com the whole path can run about 80 days. A .com.au is done in 30.

We run a directory of domains that have come out the far end of this process, so reading status codes and working out which stage a name is in is most of our week. What follows is the sequence, with the policy text behind each number, because the numbers get misquoted constantly. The complete guide to expired domains covers the vocabulary and the market. This piece answers a narrower question, which is what actually happens after the expiry date and when someone else can have the name.

What happens the day a domain expires?

Less than people expect. The record stays in the registry and the name is not released. What changes is who may do what.

For .com, .net, .org and the other generic top-level domains, two documents set the rules. ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP) binds every accredited registrar. The registry contract for each TLD sets the grace period lengths. Together they give you the table below.

The reminders come first. Registrars "must notify the registered name holder of the expiration at least two times. One of these notices must be sent approximately one month prior to expiration and one must be sent approximately one week prior to expiration." ICANN's implementation notes accept 26 to 35 days and 4 to 10 days as compliant.

Then expiry day. The registration agreement lapses, but the ERRP keeps a renewal right open: "Beginning at the time of expiration and through the DNS resolution interruption period ... the RAE must be permitted by the registrar to renew the expired registration." RAE is the policy's term for the registrant at expiration, whoever held the name when it lapsed.

How long is the grace period after a domain expires?

Up to 45 days for .com. How much of that the owner actually gets is the registrar's call.

The .com Registry Agreement between ICANN and Verisign says "the current value of the Auto-Renew Grace Period is 45 calendar days." The registry has already renewed the name for a year and billed the registrar; delete inside the window and the registrar gets that money back. ICANN's EPP status codes page describes the matching autoRenewPeriod status the same way: "If the registrar deletes the domain name during this period, the registry provides a credit to the registrar for the cost of the renewal."

Registrars do not have to wait. The ERRP says "registrars may delete registrations at any time after they expire." The Expired Domain Deletion Policy, now clause 3.7.5 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, sets the ceiling instead: "a domain name must be deleted within 45 days of either the registrar or the registrant terminating a registration agreement," unless something like a UDRP case or a court order is in the way. The same clause makes every registrar tell you "the expected time at which a non-renewed domain name would be deleted relative to the domains expiration date, or a date range not to exceed ten (10) days in length." That paragraph is buried in your registrar's terms, and it is why two domains that expired on the same day can drop six weeks apart.

Somewhere in this window the site goes dark. For any domain deleted eight or more days after expiry, the registrar must interrupt the owner's DNS "for at least the last eight consecutive days (after expiration) that the registration is renewable." If it points the name at a page instead, the page "must conspicuously indicate that the domain name registration is expired and provide renewal instructions." So the "this domain has expired" page you keep seeing is a compliance notice aimed at the owner. It is not a listing. It does not mean the name is about to be for sale.

The other thing that happens here is the auction. GoDaddy, Namecheap and Dynadot all auction names from their own books during the grace period. If someone bids, the registrar renews the name and hands it to the winner. It never deletes, never drops. Most .com names with real backlinks leave the process this way, which is why the free drop is thinner than the expiry volume suggests. Our guide to backorders, dropcatchers and directories compares those exits.

What is the redemption period for a domain?

A 30-day hold after deletion. Only the previous owner can get the name back, only through the registrar that deleted it, and only for a fee.

The ERRP requires that "all gTLD registries must offer a Redemption Grace Period ("RGP") of 30 days immediately following the deletion of a registration, during which time the deleted registration may be restored at the request of the RAE by the registrar that deleted it." The registry must "disable DNS resolution and prohibit attempted transfers" for the whole period and show the status in WHOIS or RDAP.

ICANN's EPP page gives the plain-English version under redemptionPeriod: "Your domain will be held in this status for 30 days. After five calendar days following the end of the redemptionPeriod, your domain is purged from the registry database and becomes available for registration."

Restoring costs more than renewing. The ERRP makes registrars publish their "renewal fees, post-expiration renewal fees (if different), and redemption/restore fees" at registration, so the number is on their site somewhere. If you are the owner and inside these 30 days, pay it. Nothing after this point is cheaper. For everyone else, redemption means wait. Nobody can touch the name.

What does pending delete mean?

Five days between the end of redemption and the purge. The .com Registry Agreement says "the current length of this Pending Delete Period is five calendar days." The pendingDelete status comes from RFC 3915, the EPP extension registries use to run these grace periods, and ICANN describes it as meaning "your domain has been in redemptionPeriod status for 30 days and you have not restored it within that 30-day period. Your domain will remain in this status for several days, after which time your domain will be purged and dropped from the registry database."

At this point the name's fate is fixed. The owner cannot restore it. Nobody can register it. Verisign tells its registrars which names just entered pending delete, so the whole trade knows five days ahead what is coming, and sites like ExpiredDomains.net republish the list. This is when backorders get placed, and it is why a name with any obvious value is usually caught within a second of dropping. The dropcatching guide covers that race.

When do expired domains become available?

For a .com, about 35 to 80 days after expiry, and the spread is all registrar behaviour.

35 is the fixed part. 30 days of redemption plus 5 of pending delete, counted from the moment of deletion, every time. Everything else is how long the registrar sat on the name first. Delete on day 1 and it drops around day 36; hold the full grace period and it drops around day 80. A name that sold at a registrar auction never drops at all, which people forget when they set a calendar reminder for day 80 and find the site rebuilt under a new owner.

The drop is a daily batch. The registry walks its list of purged names and flips each one to available, and from that instant anyone can register it at the normal price at any registrar. Contested names go to whichever dropcatcher wins. The rest just sit there, sometimes for years. Those are the names that end up on free lists and in the Revised directory of expired domains with backlinks, where every listing has already dropped and shows the date we last confirmed it was unregistered.

How is the .au timeline different?

Australian domains skip nearly all of this. One 30-day window, then release.

auDA's .au Licensing Rules do it in two clauses. 2.14.4: "A Registrant whose Licence has expired may apply to the Registrar to renew the Licence within 30 calendar days from the Licence expiry date," provided they still qualify. 2.14.5: "If a Licence is not renewed before the expiry of the 30 calendar day period, the Domain Name will become available to the public on a First Come, First Served basis."

No separate redemption period, no pending delete, and no registrar auction in between, because a .au licence cannot be handed to an auction winner the way a gTLD registration can. The registry publishes the names due for release, and catchers such as drop.com.au republish that daily drop list, take backorders against it and auction what they catch. Their auction "closes at 11:30 AM (AEST and AEDT Melbourne/Sydney) every day."

Eligibility survives expiry, too. A .com.au still needs an Australian presence such as an ABN, so an expired one is only available to people who qualify to hold it. Check that before you spend an hour on the history of anything in expired .com.au domains.

How do you check where a domain is in the timeline?

Read its EPP status codes. They are the registry's own account of which stage the name is in, and they settle most of the arguments that scraped "expiring soon" lists start.

The expired domain checker reads the registration record, tells you whether the name is registered right now, and shows the status codes next to the archive history. ICANN Lookup gives you the raw RDAP record instead.

The codes that matter, all defined on the EPP status codes page: autoRenewPeriod means expired but inside the grace period, owner can still renew. redemptionPeriod means deleted, 30-day hold, only the previous owner can restore. pendingRestore means the owner has asked for it back and is getting it. pendingDelete means five days from the purge and nobody can touch it. No record at all means it has dropped, or was never registered, and you can register it now.

Two readings that trip people up. A name showing clientTransferProhibited and an expiry date in the future has not expired, whatever a list says. And a name in redemptionPeriod with an expiry date two months back just means the registrar sat on it for the whole grace period before deleting.

The status tells you when a name might become available. It says nothing about whether it is worth having. Pull the referring domains and open the archived pages before you care about the date, and read Google's expired domain abuse policy if what you plan to build differs from what the name used to be.

FAQ

If a domain expires, can I buy it? Eventually, if nobody gets there first. For a gTLD the previous owner has up to 45 days to renew and 30 more to restore, then the name spends 5 days in pending delete and drops. Registrar auctions and backorder services intercept a lot of names before that. For a .au domain the owner has 30 days, then it is released.

How long after a domain expires can someone else register it? About 35 to 80 days for a .com, depending on how fast the registrar deletes it. 30 days for a .au domain. Nothing you do shortens either window.

What is the redemption period? The 30 days after a registrar deletes a domain. ICANN policy requires it for every gTLD. Only the previous owner can restore the name, through the same registrar, for a restore fee, and DNS and transfers are blocked throughout.

My domain expired. How do I get it back? Contact your registrar today. In the grace period you renew at close to the usual price. In redemption you pay a restore fee on top. In pending delete nobody can help you, and after the drop you are competing with everyone else to register it fresh.

If you would rather skip the timeline, browse the directory of expired domains with backlinks. Every listing has already dropped, has referring domains we verified, and shows when we last checked it was still available. Filter by TLD, by age or by what links to it, read the archive timeline, and register the name yourself at any registrar once the evidence stacks up.