What happens if I forget to renew and my domain expires?

When a domain expires through us, 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 in an expired status.

Currently, we offer a non-guaranteed 29-day grace period for renewal for many TLDs. During this time, there is a recovery admin fee of $35 per domain + the regular renewal fee to reactivate the domain as long as its within the 29 day grace period.

Important Notes:

- Each registry has different rules for their grace periods. (see grace period list here)
- There is no guaranteed grace period so you may lose the domain upon expiration
- Once a domain expires, the domain may be disposed of at any time.
- After the grace period elapses, the domain may go into a Redemption Grace Period (see below)

We do offer full tracking of your domain expiration dates via your control panel along with courtesy emails that are sent out 30 days, 14 days, 7 days and 1 day prior to expiration of the domain to warn you of the impending expiration. In order to avoid losing your domain we highly recommend that any emails sent from us, you:

1. read the emails. do not ignore them. take them seriously. losing your domain is serious.
2. make sure that your email address is up to date in the billing system.
3. if you have spam filters ensure that support@eicra.com is in the whitelist.
4. regularly check your billing account with us (copies of all emails and reminders are also stored there).

What does the status "redemption period" mean? What is "pending delete"?

After a domain has passed through any applicable expiration grace period, the domain may go into redemption status.

"Redemption Grace Period," or RGP, is a time frame during which the previous registrant can reactivate an expired domain after the registrar has issued a delete command to the registry. Only the previous registrant can retrieve the domain during this time frame, 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 timeframe after redemption during which 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. To greatly increase your chances of acquiring Pending Delete domains, please contact us and we will arrange to place a backorder on the domain name.

What is the difference between Redemption Grace Period and Extended Redemption Grace Period?

There are two different forms of Redemption. After a domain expires and passes through any applicable renewal grace period, the domain may have a status of Redemption Grace Period (RGP) or Extended Redemption Grace Period (ERGP). There is a fee to restore your domain from either Redemption status and it is not discountable. This fee is in addition to the domain renewal fee and the standard recovery admin fee.  

During the Redemption period, there are higher fees to recover the domain name.

Redemption Fee: $375
Recovery Admin Fee: $40
Domain Fees: $15 (dependant on the TLD)