Redemption period

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Redemption period, explained

Under ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy, every gTLD registry except the sponsored ones must offer a 30-day Redemption Grace Period immediately after a registration is deleted. During it the registry must disable DNS resolution, so the website and email stop working, and must block transfers, while the registrar must let the registrant at expiration redeem the name. Then comes pending delete, typically 5 days, when nothing can restore the name, followed by its release.

Terminology varies. Before the registry stage, registrars run their own post-expiry period, and some charge what they call a redemption fee for late renewals then; GoDaddy's timeline, for example, adds one from day 18 after expiry. Registrars set their own restore fees, but the policy requires them to make renewal, post-expiration renewal and restore fees available to customers.

For buyers, a name in redemption cannot be registered, bought from the registry or transferred, and it is not certain to drop, since the registrant can restore it up to the last day. Place backorders so you are in position if it reaches pending delete. If you approach the owner instead, the owner has to restore the name before it can be sold.

For owners, the redemption period is an expensive safety net, not a plan. Keep auto-renew on with a valid payment method and a contact email you read; registrars must send reminders roughly one month and one week before expiry. Country-code extensions set their own deletion rules, so check the registry policy for any ccTLD you hold.

Go deeper Expired Domains and Drop Catching: How the Domain Lifecycle Works