Also called expiry date
Expiration date, explained
Registrations in gTLDs run for one to ten years at a time, and each renewal moves the date forward. ICANN requires registrars to send reminders about one month and one week before expiry and another within five days after. Public lookups can mislead: because the .com registry auto-renews an unpaid name the day after it expires, WHOIS and RDAP may show a registry expiry date a year ahead while the name sits in its registrar's grace period. Status codes such as autoRenewPeriod tell the real story.
For an investor, expiration dates are the portfolio's cash-flow calendar. Keep auto-renew on for names you will keep, with a valid payment method and a monitored email on the account, and review the list months ahead so every drop is a decision. When buying, a name that is about to expire may come to auction, but its owner can still renew during the grace period, so an approaching date is a lead, not a guarantee.
Example. An investor exports every expiration date to a calendar and makes the renew-or-drop decision for each name 60 days ahead, instead of letting auto-renew decide.
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Education, not financial, legal or tax advice. Domain investing is speculative and most domain names never sell. Read the disclaimer.