When does a .com domain expire and drop?
An expired .com drops about 80 days later. Here is that timeline in full, plus who runs .com, how to register one, and its technical profile.
An expired .com is released about 80 days after its expiry date, after a renewal grace period, a redemption window and a short pending delete. .com is the internet's original and largest generic top-level domain, operated by Verisign under ICANN contract since 1985 and open to anyone worldwide through accredited registrars.
- Registry
- Verisign
- Backend
- Verisign
- Type
- gTLD
- Delegated
- 1985-01-01
- DNSSEC
- Yes
- IDN
- Yes
- Restrictions
- Open
- Label length
- 1–63 chars
- Grace
- 45 days
- Redemption
- 30 days
- Pending delete
- 5 days
- Expiry to drop
- 80 days
- Daily drop window
- 13:00–20:00 UTC
The domain every other domain is measured against
.com is the default expectation. It carries the most trust with the widest audience, has the deepest secondary market, and runs the most documented lifecycle of any TLD, which is why its timeline is the baseline the rest of these pages compare themselves to.
Because Verisign runs .com under ICANN contract, every stage is published and every status appears on the public record. A watched .com gives you the earliest and most reliable signals of any namespace, from a renewal lapse to the moment a name is released.
Who runs .com, and since when
.com was delegated in 1985, among the first handful of top-level domains, and has been operated by Verisign for its entire modern history under a registry agreement with ICANN.
Backend operations run on Verisign's own infrastructure, the same platform behind .net, which is why the two share an identical lifecycle and daily drop rhythm. The contract fixes the deletion stages, so .com's timeline changes only when ICANN policy does.
How to register a .com domain
A .com is open to anyone, anywhere, with no eligibility checks. Availability is the only real constraint: the good short and dictionary names went long ago, so most new registrations are compounds, coined words or expired names caught at the drop.
There is no minimum term beyond one year and no local presence requirement. Single and two-character .com names are almost entirely allocated, so treat anything short as an aftermarket purchase rather than a registration.
- Open registration: anyone worldwide can hold a .com domain, with no local-presence requirement.
- Register through any accredited registrar; the registry sells wholesale, not direct to the public.
- Labels run up to 63 characters using letters, digits and hyphens, never starting or ending with a hyphen.
- Registration is annual and renewable; an unrenewed name enters the deletion timeline below.
The .com timeline, stage by stage
The stages an unrenewed .com passes through, each at its ICANN-contracted length.
| Stage | Window | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Renewal grace: about 45 days | Day 0 to 45 after expiry | The registration has expired but the current owner can still renew at the normal price, usually through their registrar. The name often stops resolving during this window, and nobody else can register it. Registrars frequently delete earlier than the final day, which starts the rest of the timeline early. |
| Redemption: about 30 days | Day 45 to 75 after expiry | Deletion has begun. Only the current registrant can recover the name now, typically by paying a restore fee on top of the renewal, and it cannot be registered by anyone else. A restore during this stage is a strong signal the name will not drop. |
| Pending delete: 5 days | Day 75 to 80 after expiry | The point of no return. Recovery is no longer possible for anyone, including the original owner, and the registry releases the name at the end of this fixed window. This is the stage worth acting on if you want the name. |
| Released: registrable by anyone | From about day 80 | The name leaves the registry's deletion pipeline and returns to the public pool, registrable at the standard price on a first-come basis through any registrar. Availability monitoring exists to catch this moment. |
.com technical profile
How .com publishes registration data, secures its zone, and handles non-Latin names.
WHOIS and RDAP
Registration data for every .com domain is queryable over RDAP at https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/ and legacy WHOIS at whois.verisign-grs.com, so status, dates and record changes are machine-readable, which is exactly what our monitoring reads.
DNSSEC
The .com registry supports DNSSEC, so a domain can publish DS records and let resolvers cryptographically validate its DNS answers against tampering.
Internationalized names
The .com registry supports internationalized domain names, so labels in non-Latin scripts register as punycode alongside ordinary ASCII names.
https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/
whois.verisign-grs.com
As the largest zone in the DNS, .com is heavily mirrored and fast to resolve everywhere. Verisign deletes pending-delete names in a single daily batch rather than continuously, so releases land inside a predictable window that drop-catching is built around.
Is .com a good domain?
Where a .com is the obvious choice, and where it is not.
Maximum recognition
For a business selling to a general audience, .com is still what people type and trust by default. If the exact-match .com is affordable, it is usually worth it.
The deepest market
More liquidity, more comparable sales and more buyers than any other extension, which makes a good .com both the most defensible brand asset and the most contested drop.
Short names are gone
The flip side of forty years of demand: brandable short .com names are scarce and expensive. Startups increasingly pair a coined word with .com or start on .io and graduate later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about .com domains.
Who runs the .com registry?
Verisign has operated .com since 1985 under an ICANN registry agreement, on the same backend as .net. Registrars sell to the public; the registry itself does not.
How long does it take for an expired .com to drop?
About 80 days end to end: up to 45 days of renewal grace, 30 days of redemption, then 5 days of pending delete before the name is released. Registrar-side early deletion can shorten the first stage; pending delete is fixed.
Can I register a .com directly from the registry?
No. Verisign sells wholesale to accredited registrars, and you register through one of them. Any accredited registrar can register any available .com at the same wholesale cost.
Does .com support DNSSEC?
Yes. The .com zone is signed, so a domain that publishes DS records lets resolvers validate its DNS answers cryptographically. Registration records are also available over RDAP at https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/.
Why are short .com names so expensive?
Four decades of universal demand: essentially every one-word, one and two-character .com is already registered, so acquiring one means buying it on the secondary market rather than registering it.
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