Domain expired? The days, fees and auctions by registrar

Your domain lapsed. Here is how many days you have at each registrar, what getting it back costs, and when your site and email stop.

What happens to a .com, step by step

ICANN sets the outer rules for .com, .net, .org and the other generic endings, and each registrar fills in its own days within them. The phases come in this order.

Reminders. Under ICANN’s Expired Registration Recovery Policy, your registrar has to email you about a month before expiry, again about a week before, and once more within five days after it.
Expiry and grace. The day after expiry, the .com registry renews the name by itself, and the registrar then has a 45-day grace period to keep it or delete it. Registrars use part of that window as their own grace period, when you can still renew at the normal price.
Redemption. Once the registrar deletes the name, it sits in a 30-day redemption period. The name is out of DNS, nobody else can register it, and you can buy it back for a fee.
Pending delete. Five days in which nobody, including you, can save it.
Release. The name becomes available to anyone, usually 70 to 80 days after expiry, according to Namecheap.

ICANN doesn’t fix the length of the grace period. It requires the registrar to switch off DNS for at least eight days at some point after expiry, and to let you renew until that period ends. During those days the registrar can show its own page on your domain, but the policy says that page has to tell visitors the name expired and how the owner can renew it.

Seven registrars compared

These are the days and fees each registrar publishes for an expired .com, counted from the expiry date.

What happens to an expired .com at seven registrars, by day after expiry, with the redemption fee in US dollars
Registrar	Site and email stop	Normal price until	Redemption fee
Namecheap	At expiry	About day 30	$89.98 with renewal
GoDaddy	Day 5	Day 12, fee from day 18	$99.99
Cloudflare	Day 31	Day 40	Not published
Porkbun	Day 11	Day 35 to 45	$200 plus renewal
Squarespace	At expiry	Day 30	$45 plus renewal
Hostinger	At expiry	Day 30	$80 plus renewal and VAT
IONOS	End of term	10 days after deletion	$90

Cloudflare keeps an expired domain working longest: it resolves as normal for 30 days, then shows a suspension page until day 40. Cloudflare doesn’t publish its restore fee and says only that it varies by ending. Its renewal page also says the name enters a 30-day redemption period at expiry, which doesn’t match its own FAQ. Porkbun keeps the domain working for the first 10 days, then points it at its own nameservers.

GoDaddy parks the domain on day 5, makes its last automatic renewal attempt on day 12 and adds a redemption fee from day 18. Its auctions start on day 26, and from day 30 a bid on the name stops you from renewing it. Hostinger’s published policy also auctions on day 26. Porkbun’s names can be queued with outside auction services around day 21 and be live there between days 26 and 37. Namecheap says a name may be auctioned after its grace period but gives no day. Cloudflare, Squarespace and IONOS mention no auctions.

Namecheap’s $89.98 for a .com is the fee and one year’s renewal together, plus ICANN’s $0.20. Porkbun’s pricing page says $200 in addition to the renewal, while its help article says the fee varies by registry. Squarespace charges $45 on top of the current price, and names it still holds through Tucows get 40 days of grace instead of 30. IONOS works by cancellation: once a domain is deleted at the end of its term, you can reactivate it yourself for 10 days, and after that support can recover it for $90, without your mailboxes and settings.

Your website and email go first

At Namecheap, Squarespace and Hostinger, the site and email stop on the expiry date. Your hosting is a separate account, so the files on it stay where they are, and the site comes back once you renew and DNS updates. Email is the bigger risk. Namecheap warns that mail sent to the domain after expiry is lost, so invoices, password resets and replies from customers sent in that time are gone.

If your business email runs on the domain, the missing mail will usually cost you more than any redemption fee. Our page on what email on your own domain costs compares the mail providers, but every one of them stops receiving when the domain stops resolving.

Dotted pixel art of tulip rows in red, pink and orange running towards the horizon.

.no, .uk and .de follow their own rules

Country endings are run by national registries, and none of the three below uses the .com pattern of grace, redemption and pending delete.

Expiry rules for .no and .uk domains, by day after the process starts
Ending	Site and email work	You can renew	Free for anyone
.no	Until day 60	Until day 90	Day 90
.uk	Until day 30	Until day 90, no fee	Day 95

For .no, the 90 days start when your registrar stops the subscription, which Norid announces with an email. Norid sends a reminder on day 30, quarantines the name on day 60 so that websites and email stop, and deletes it on day 90. You can extend the subscription at any point before that, through your own registrar or another one. Once it is deleted, the only way back is to register it again like a new name, if nobody else has.

A .uk domain keeps working for 30 days after expiry, is suspended from day 30 to day 90 while you can still renew it, and drops on day 95. Both Namecheap and Cloudflare say there is no redemption fee for .uk. DENIC, which runs .de, publishes no expiry timeline of its own. A deleted .de goes into a 30-day redemption period in which only the last holder, or someone they name, can register it again. Namecheap asks for .de names to be renewed at least five days before they expire.

Getting a domain back

Look up the domain at ICANN’s lookup tool and read its status. For a .com, autoRenewPeriod means it is in grace, redemptionPeriod means you need the restore fee, and pendingDelete means it can’t be saved.
In grace, log in to your registrar and renew it. At most registrars it shows in your account as expired with a renew button.
In redemption, the name may have left your account. GoDaddy removes it on day 18 and Porkbun handles redemptions through its support team. Ask for the restore, pay the fee and expect a few days before it resolves again: the registry can hold a restore for up to about a week.
If it is already listed in an auction, renew it fast. At Hostinger a bid takes the name out of your account, and at GoDaddy a bid stops you renewing from day 30.

To stop it happening again, turn on auto-renew, keep a card on file that won’t expire before the domain does, and make sure the registrant email is an address that doesn’t depend on the domain itself. All the reminders go there.

How this was checked

On 13 November 2026 we read the expiry, renewal and redemption pages of seven registrars, ICANN’s policies and the registry rules for .com, .no, .uk and .de. Every value in the tables links back to a URL and a quote in the raw JSON. Fees are list prices in US dollars, before tax. Registrars change these pages, so check your own registrar’s before you count on a day. We did not let a domain expire to test them. This article was prepared with help from AI.

Common questions

Can someone buy my domain the day after it expires?

Not a .com. Nobody else can register it until it has gone through grace, redemption and pending delete. The exception is a registrar auction: at GoDaddy and Hostinger the name can be listed from day 26, and a winning bidder gets it.

Will I lose my website?

Not the files, if your hosting is paid separately. The site just can’t be reached until the domain is renewed. Email sent while the domain was down may be gone for good.

Can I move an expired domain to a cheaper registrar?

Not while a .com is in redemption: ICANN’s policy blocks transfers then, so restore it where it is first. A .no is different, and you can extend it through another registrar at any point in Norid’s 90 days.

Sources

All checked on 13 November 2026.