How to own your domain (and stop paying someone else for it)

You own your domain when your name (or your company's name) is on the registrant record and the registrar account is one you log in to yourself. If your web designer's agency pays the renewal from their account, you are renting it, and you can lose it the day they close, raise prices, or stop answering email. Fixing it takes an hour of work and a few days of waiting.

Registrant vs. account holder: the part people get wrong

Two separate things decide who controls a domain:

• The registrant is the legal holder of the domain. That's the name on the registration record.
• The account is the login at the registrar (the company that sells and renews the domain) where the domain sits.

You need both. A domain can list you as registrant but sit inside your designer's account, which means they still control renewals and DNS. Or it can sit in an account you created, but with the designer's name as registrant because they filled in the form. Either way, you are depending on someone else.

The right setup: the domain is in a registrar account in your business's name, logged in with an email address you control (not one that lives on the same domain, more on that below), and you are the registrant. Your designer or developer gets access through the registrar's delegate or team feature, if it has one, not your password.

Step 1: Find out where your domain lives

1. Go to ICANN Lookup and enter your domain. Since January 28, 2025, this tool runs on RDAP, which replaced WHOIS as the official source for .com, .net and other generic domains.
2. Note the registrar name and the expiration date.
3. Look at the status codes. clientTransferProhibited is a normal lock set by the registrar. serverTransferProhibited is set at the registry level and can mean a dispute or a registry lock.
4. Don't expect to see the registrant's name. Most personal contact data is redacted now. To confirm who the registrant is, you have to see the contact record inside the registrar account.

If you have never logged in to that registrar, the domain is not in your account. That answers the question.

Step 2: Get it into your hands

Write to whoever set the site up. Keep it short and in writing:

Please move [domain] into a registrar account in [business name]'s name and confirm the registrant contact is [business name], [your email]. If that's not possible, please send me the auth code and unlock the domain so I can transfer it.

Two paths from here:

• Account move (also called a push or internal transfer): if you are happy with the current registrar, many registrars can move a domain from one customer account to another without a full transfer. It's fast and nothing technical changes.
• Registrar transfer: you move the domain to a registrar of your choice. This is the route if the old registrar is one only your designer uses, or you want everything in one place.

One trap: if the registrant name or email is changed, ICANN requires the registrar to apply a 60-day transfer lock, unless the registrar offered you an opt-out and you took it before the change. If you plan to move registrars anyway, ask whether the designer can transfer first and update the registrant after, or ask the registrar about the opt-out.

Step 3: Protect DNS and email before you move anything

This is where most transfers go wrong. Your domain's DNS records point your website to its host and your email to its provider. If those records are hosted at the old registrar and you move the domain, they can vanish, and email stops arriving with no warning.

Before you request the transfer:

• Log in (or have the designer log in) and export or screenshot every DNS record: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT (including SPF, DKIM and DMARC), and any SRV records.
• Check the nameservers. If they point to a separate DNS host (like Cloudflare or your web host), the records live there and a registrar transfer won't touch them. If they point to the old registrar, recreate the records at your new DNS host first, then switch nameservers, then transfer.
• Make sure the email address on the registrar account is not on the domain you're moving. If your login is [email protected] and email breaks mid-transfer, you can't receive the approval message.
• Don't transfer in the last week or two before the domain expires. Give yourself room.

Step 4: Transfer the domain

1. Unlock the domain at the current registrar. Look for "Domain lock," "Transfer lock" or "Registrar lock" in the domain's settings. ICANN requires registrars to give you a reasonable way to remove it.
2. Get the auth code (also called the EPP code, AuthInfo code or transfer code). Many registrars let you generate it on the domain's settings page. If not, ICANN requires the registrar to provide it within five calendar days of your request.
3. Start the transfer at the new registrar. Enter the domain and the auth code. Most generic domains include a one-year renewal with the transfer, added to your current expiration date.
4. Approve the confirmation emails. Watch the inbox on the registrant record and the new account.
5. Wait. Under ICANN's Transfer Policy, the registry completes the transfer within five calendar days unless the losing registrar denies it. Approving early at the old registrar, where offered, usually speeds it up.
6. Check the domain at ICANN Lookup again. The registrar should show your new one. Then confirm the site loads and send yourself a test email from an outside address.

When you can't transfer: within 60 days of the domain's creation or of a previous transfer, the registrar is allowed to refuse. It must refuse during a UDRP dispute, a court order, or the 60-day change-of-registrant lock. If you think a denial is wrong, ICANN takes transfer complaints.

ICANN has also been reviewing its Transfer Policy, and the GNSO sent revised recommendations to the ICANN Board in 2025. Exact names and timelines may shift as registrars implement changes, so follow your registrar's current help page for the steps on screen.

Step 5: Make sure you never lose it

• Turn on auto-renew and keep a valid card on the account. The usual way a business loses a domain isn't theft. It's an expired card, or a renewal notice that went to someone who left.
• Renew for several years if your registrar allows it. Fewer renewals, fewer chances to miss one.
• Turn on two-factor authentication on the registrar account.
• Add a second admin, like a business partner, so it's not tied to one person.
• Keep the transfer lock on when you're not moving anything.
• Consider registry lock if the domain is critical. For .com and .net, Verisign's Registry Lock sets a lock at the registry itself, and changes require a manual verification step through your registrar. Not every registrar offers it, so ask.

Put the registrar name, login location, renewal date and DNS host in a single document the business owns. If you're also sorting out your Google listing, the same "is it in my name?" check applies, covered in our Google Business Profile checklist. And if you're shopping for a new site, ownership belongs on your list of questions that decide what a website really costs.

Wrapping up

Owning your domain isn't technical. It's paperwork: your name on the record, your login on the account, auto-renew on, and DNS written down before anything moves. If you'd rather have it done, write to [email protected] or see how we set this up in your name.

Sources

• Transfer Policy (ICANN)
• FAQs for Registrants: Transferring Your Domain Name (ICANN)
• ICANN Update: Launching RDAP; Sunsetting WHOIS (ICANN)
• EPP Status Codes: What Do They Mean? (ICANN)
• GNSO Council Recommendations Report to the ICANN Board: Transfer Policy Review (ICANN GNSO)
• Verisign Registry Lock (Verisign)
• ICANN Lookup