When a domain expires, it becomes inactive immediately, a parking page is displayed, and all the services attached to it, such as a website and/or email cease to function. It is not possible to make any updates to the domain while it is expired. The domain will remain available for reactivation at your regular domain renewal price. To reactivate an expired domain, simply pay the assocaited invoice or contact us for futher assistance.
Currently, we offer a non-guaranteed 29-day grace period for renewal for many TLDs. Each registry has different rules for their grace periods. There is no guaranteed grace period. Once a domain expires, we may dispose of it at any time according to the registration agreement. After the grace period elapses, the domain may go into a Redemption Grace Period (see Definitions of Redemption and Pending Delete). We highly recommend that you enable Auto Renew for your domains and ensure your invoices are paid in a timely manner. Likewise, we suggest you keep track of your domain expiration dates and renew well in advance to avoid unintentional down time or loss of the name.
Renewal years are always added to the end of the current registration period (i.e., the new expiration date is the same whether you renew two months early or the day before expiration), so you will never lose time on your domain by renewing early.
What happens after the domain has passed the grace period?
After a domain has passed through any applicable expiration grace period, the domain may go into redemption status.
"Redemption Grace Period" or RGP, is the grace period provided after the registrar has issued a delete request to the registry. Only the previous registrant can recover the domain during this time, and it must be retrieved through the previous registrar. The Redemption Grace Period is named differently for some TLDs; the .org equivalent, for example, is "Pending Delete - Restorable."
Domains in our system can go into either Redemption Grace Period or Extended Redemption Grace Period.
"Pending Delete" refers to the 5-day time frame after redemption. During this time the registry holds the domain and it cannot be recovered. Once the Registry deletes the domain, it becomes available for anyone to purchase as a new domain. It is available on a first-come first-served basis.
