Every domain status, explained
A registry publishes a domain's state as a status code, and most of those codes are opaque until someone tells you what they mean. Here is every state our engine recognises, the codes behind it, and what it means for the name you are holding or waiting on.
A domain's registry status says where it is between registered and gettable. While it is registered the status is a form of active. Once it expires it passes through a renewal grace period, then a redemption period where recovery costs a restore fee, then a short pending delete window in which nothing can save it, and then it is released and anyone can register it. Registries publish each of those states as an EPP status code, and every code our engine has seen is normalised into one of the states defined below.
Registered (active)
UnavailableA domain that is currently held by a registrant and is not near its expiry date. The registry will not let anyone else register it.
Registry codes
ok
active
registered
live
connected
delegated
published
verified
Nothing needs doing. If the name is one of yours, the only date that matters is its renewal date; if it is one you want, the registry will not release it unless the owner stops paying. A registered name can still be bought privately from its owner, which is a separate transaction from registration.
Related terms Expiring soon Available WHOIS
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
Expiring soon
A registered domain whose expiry date falls inside the next 90 days. It is still fully active; the clock is simply visible.
For a name you own this is the last comfortable moment to renew, before the price of recovering it starts climbing. For a name you are watching it is the earliest honest signal that it might become available, and also the point at which most owners quietly renew.
Related terms Registered (active) Grace period autoRenewPeriod
Monitor it Expiry monitoring
Grace period
Grace PeriodThe window immediately after expiry in which the registrant can still renew the domain at the ordinary renewal price. Length is set by the registry, commonly around 45 days for generic TLDs.
Registry codes
autoRenewGracePeriod
gracePeriod
renewPeriod
transferPeriod
addPeriod
onHold
paymentOverdue
The name is expired but nothing has been lost. Most registrars will renew it through the normal checkout in this window, and many registrars auto-renew on the owner's behalf here. For a watcher, a name in grace is not yet worth planning around: the large majority are renewed before the window closes.
Related terms autoRenewPeriod Redemption period Expired
Monitor it Expiry monitoring
autoRenewPeriod
Grace PeriodThe EPP status a registry sets when it has automatically renewed an expired domain on the registrar's account, giving the registrar a window to either collect payment or cancel the renewal for a refund.
Registry codes
autoRenewPeriod
This code confuses people because it looks like good news and often is not. The registry has renewed the name against the registrar's balance, not against the registrant's payment. If the registrant never pays, the registrar can hand the renewal back within the window and the name resumes its path towards deletion. Seeing autoRenewPeriod therefore means the name is expired and unpaid, not that it is safe for another year. On your own domain it is a prompt to pay the invoice; on a domain you are watching it is the first real sign the owner may have walked away.
Related terms Grace period Redemption period clientHold EPP
Monitor it Expiry monitoring
Tool Check a domain's expiry and stage Read the full definition
clientHold
Grace PeriodAn EPP status set by the registrar that removes the domain from the DNS zone. The name stays registered, but it stops resolving: no website, no email.
Registry codes
clientHold
clientHold is the registrar acting, not the registry. The usual reasons are an unpaid invoice, an unverified registrant contact under ICANN's verification rules, or an abuse or legal complaint. Because the name is pulled from the zone, the outage is total and immediate, and no amount of DNS work at your provider will fix it while the hold is in place. The only cure is the registrar removing it, which means resolving whatever caused it. Its sibling serverHold is the same effect applied by the registry, and a registrar cannot lift that one.
Related terms serverHold clientTransferProhibited EPP NS record
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
Tool Look up a domain's registry record Read the full definition
serverHold
Grace PeriodThe registry's own version of clientHold. The domain is removed from the zone and stops resolving, and the registrar cannot lift it.
Registry codes
serverHold
serverHold is set above the registrar, usually for a legal order, a dispute, or a registry-level policy or abuse action. The practical effect on the name is identical to clientHold, but the route out runs through the registry rather than your provider, so the registrar's support desk cannot clear it for you.
Related terms clientHold EPP Registry
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
clientTransferProhibited
UnavailableAn EPP status that blocks the domain from being transferred to another registrar. It is a lock, not a problem, and most registrars set it by default.
Registry codes
clientTransferProhibited
serverTransferProhibited
This is the single most common status on healthy domains, and it alarms people who see it for the first time. It exists to stop an unauthorised transfer, so it is a protection you want in place. You remove it yourself at your registrar when you genuinely intend to move the name, and put it back afterwards. The registry-set twin, serverTransferProhibited, is applied above the registrar and usually accompanies a dispute or a registry lock service.
Related terms clientHold EPP Registrar Domain lock (update, delete and registry lock)
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
Domain lock (update, delete and registry lock)
UnavailableThe remaining EPP prohibitions: clientUpdateProhibited and clientDeleteProhibited set by your registrar, serverUpdateProhibited and serverDeleteProhibited set by the registry, and the bundled registry lock services that apply several at once.
Registry codes
clientUpdateProhibited
clientDeleteProhibited
serverUpdateProhibited
serverDeleteProhibited
registryLock
These are protections, not faults, and seeing several at once on a healthy domain is normal. The prefix is the whole story: client codes are yours to remove in your registrar account, server codes are the registry's and no registrar support desk can clear them for you. An update prohibition blocks changes to nameservers and contacts, which is why a DNS change that will not save is often a lock rather than a bug. A delete prohibition stops the name being deleted, deliberately or otherwise. Registry lock services sold for high-value domains apply the server-side set together and require an out-of-band identity check to lift, which is the point of them.
Related terms clientTransferProhibited Auth code (EPP code, transfer code) EPP Registrar
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
pendingTransfer
UnavailableA transfer to another registrar has been requested and is waiting on the losing registrar. The domain still works normally while it sits here.
Registry codes
pendingTransfer
The clock is the thing to understand. Under ICANN rules for generic TLDs the losing registrar has five days to approve or reject, and if it does nothing the transfer completes automatically, so silence is an approval rather than a block. The registrant can cancel during that window, which is also how an unauthorised transfer is stopped, provided the contact email on the record is one somebody reads. Nothing about the domain changes while pendingTransfer is set: DNS, mail and the expiry date are untouched. A transfer also cannot start at all while a transfer prohibition is in place, or within 60 days of a registration or a previous transfer.
Related terms Auth code (EPP code, transfer code) Domain lock (update, delete and registry lock) Registrar
Monitor it Domain status monitoring
Expired
ExpiredThe registration term has run out and has not been paid for. The name is past its expiry date but has not yet been released.
Registry codes
expired
domainExpired
renewalRequired
notRenewed
transitionPeriod
Expired is a description of the date, not of what happens next: the name is now travelling through the registry's recovery windows, and it becomes gettable only at the end of them. Many registries hold an expired name for 75 to 80 days before releasing it, and several country-code registries run their own much shorter schedules.
Related terms Grace period Redemption period Expiring soon
Monitor it Expiry monitoring
Redemption period
RedemptionThe recovery window after the grace period, in which only the original registrant can get the domain back, and only by paying a restore fee on top of the renewal. Commonly 30 days on generic TLDs.
Registry codes
redemptionPeriod
redemption
pendingRestore
restoreRequested
quarantine
inQuarantine
This is the expensive stage. The name has been pulled from the zone, so the site and its email are already down, and the registrar will typically charge a restore fee in the region of 100 US dollars on top of the renewal price. Nobody else can register it during redemption, however long it sits there, so a watcher waiting on the name is waiting on the owner deciding not to pay. If the name is yours, this is the last stage at which you have any claim on it at all: once redemption ends there is no recovery, only a race to re-register it with everyone else.
Related terms Grace period pendingDelete Expired Registrar
Monitor it Expiry monitoring
Tool Check a domain's expiry and stage Read the full definition
pendingDelete
DeletingThe final registry window before an expired domain is released. Nothing can recover it here, not even the original owner: the name is queued for deletion. Commonly five days on generic TLDs.
Registry codes
pendingDelete
pendingRelease
pendingRemoval
pendingCancel
toBeDeleted
pendingDelete is the only stage in the lifecycle with a genuinely predictable ending, which is why it is the one that matters to anyone waiting on a name. When it ends the domain is deleted from the registry and becomes available to register, usually inside a daily drop batch at a time the registry runs to. Recovery is over: a restore request at this point will be refused. For a watcher, this is the stage to have a plan for, because a desirable name is often registered within seconds of release by services doing nothing else.
Related terms Redemption period Available Auction Registry
Monitor it Drop forecasting
Tool Watch a domain and get told when it drops Read the full definition
Available
AvailableThe name is not registered. Anyone can register it at any registrar, at the going price for its TLD.
Available means available right now, and for a name with any history that state can last seconds. If you are acting on an availability result, register the name rather than noting it down. A name can also read as available while a registry is between operations, which is why our checks confirm a change before alerting on it.
Related terms pendingDelete Taken RDAP
Monitor it Domain watchlists
Auction
AuctionThe domain is being sold on a marketplace rather than released to the public. It may never reach a public drop at all.
Registry codes
atAuction
auction
dropZone
reservedBy
Some registrars route their expiring names into an auction instead of letting them delete, and other names are simply listed for sale by their owners. Either way, waiting for a drop that will not happen is wasted patience: the route to this name is a bid or an offer, not a registration. A name in auction can return to the ordinary lifecycle if it fails to sell.
Related terms pendingDelete Available Registrar
Monitor it Marketplace wantlists
Blocked or reserved
BlockedThe registry will not let anyone register this name at all. It is reserved by policy or blocked by a brand-protection service, and it will not drop.
Registry codes
blocked
globalBlock
Blocked names include registry reservations, names withheld under trademark blocking services, and strings a registry has simply decided not to sell. Unlike every other unavailable state, this one has no clock: there is no expiry to wait out. Treat it as a permanent no rather than a slow yes.
Reclaimed
A domain you were watching was renewed or restored by its original owner. It went through the recovery windows and came back out registered to the same registrant.
The wait is over and the name is not coming free. This is the commonest ending for a watched domain, because most expiries are administrative rather than deliberate. It is worth distinguishing from taken: reclaimed means the owner kept it, so an approach about buying it is an approach to the same person as before.
Related terms Redemption period Taken Grace period
Monitor it Domain watchlists
Taken
A domain you were watching dropped and was registered by somebody else. The registration is new, so the registrant changed.
The name is gone and the holder is not who it was. Our engine tells this apart from a reclaim by comparing the registration date across checks, because the registry reports both outcomes identically as registered. If you wanted the name, the route to it is now a private approach to a new owner.
Related terms Available Reclaimed pendingDelete
Monitor it Domain watchlists
Unknown status
Unknown Failed UnsupportedWe do not have an authoritative answer about this name yet. It describes our read of the domain, not anything the domain is doing.
Three things produce this: the registry did not answer, the answer could not be classified, or the TLD is one we do not have a data source for. It is deliberately not treated as a change, because learning something after a failed read is not the domain doing something, and alerting on it would train you to ignore alerts. Checks continue on the normal schedule until a decisive answer arrives.