Domain escrow

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Domain escrow, explained

At Escrow.com, a licensed escrow company headquartered in California, a domain deal runs in five steps. Buyer and seller agree on the terms, including the price and who pays the fee. The buyer pays Escrow.com, which verifies and secures the funds before telling the seller to transfer. The seller moves the name, either by a push to the buyer's account at the same registrar or by handing over the auth code for a transfer. When the buyer confirms receipt, or Escrow.com sees the change in the registration records, an inspection period starts; once the buyer accepts the name or that period ends, the seller is paid.

Fees are a percentage of the price with a minimum, sliding from 2.6% on smaller deals to under 1% on the largest. Buyers can pay by wire and, with restrictions, by card or PayPal, and Escrow.com says it protects sellers against credit card chargebacks. For installment deals, Escrow.com's domain holding service keeps the name while the buyer pays on a schedule, for terms of three months to five years. Marketplaces such as Afternic and Sedo run their own payment and transfer process for sales made through them.

The rule for sellers: transfer only after the escrow account shows the payment as secured, never on the strength of an email or a screenshot. The rule for buyers: never wire money straight to a stranger. Escrow.com warns about emails from lookalike addresses, fake phone numbers and links to copies of its site, and a known domain scam is a fake escrow site proposed by the 'buyer'. AI tools make such messages and sites cheaper to produce and harder to spot, so type the escrow company's address yourself and check the transaction status after logging in there.

The volumes are substantial: Escrow.com handled $102.5 million in domain transactions in Q4 2025, and its .ai volume, at $10.3 million, crossed $10 million in a quarter for the first time.

Go deeper How to Sell a Domain Name: A Seller's Guide