How to Transfer a Domain

Before you touch anything

A transfer changes who bills you and where you log in. It does not move your website and it does not move your email. If that distinction is still fuzzy, read the overview of how domains work first. Everything below assumes you have a domain somewhere, you can get into the account holding it, and you want it held somewhere else.

Nearly every failed transfer fails at the start, not in the middle. Ten minutes of checking saves a week of waiting.

The pre-flight checks

Work through these in the account you are transferring away from. Each one can stop a transfer, and most fail quietly: the request is refused, or it never appears at all.

That last row catches people out. The transfer leaves your DNS alone, but if the records live in the old registrar's DNS and you later switch nameservers, they do not come with you. Read how DNS records work first.

How to transfer a domain, step by step

1. Fix the contact email first

   Confirm the administrative contact is a mailbox you can open right now. Changing it later can restart a lock, and changing it mid-transfer is worse.

2. Unlock the domain

   One switch in the domain settings. Leave it unlocked only while the transfer runs, then lock it again at the new registrar.

3. Request the authorisation code

   Copy it exactly, punctuation included. If it arrives by email, check the spam folder before deciding it was never sent.

4. Start the transfer at the new registrar

   You always begin at the gaining side, never the losing side. Enter the domain, paste the code and pay for the transfer term.

5. Approve it from the message you receive

   A confirmation goes to the administrative contact. Nothing moves until somebody clicks it, and an unapproved transfer eventually times out.

6. Wait out the losing registrar's window

   The old registrar gets several days to approve or object. If it does nothing, the transfer completes anyway. Do not start a second one while the first is pending.

7. Check it landed, then lock it again

   Confirm the nameservers and DNS records are what you expect, put the registrar lock back on, turn privacy back on and set auto-renew.

Why the losing registrar gets a window

The delay is deliberate. A domain is valuable and a transfer is hard to unpick, so the rules give the current registrar a fixed period to confirm the move is genuine. That window stops somebody who has briefly got into your account walking the name out the door.

You can sometimes shorten it. Many registrars offer an approve the transfer out button that releases the domain straight away instead of waiting for the clock. Where that button is not offered, there is no way to hurry the window, so plan on the better part of a week.

When a transfer fails or stalls

A refused transfer nearly always has one of a handful of causes, and the error message rarely says which:

• The domain was still locked when the request reached the registry.
• The code was wrong, stale or regenerated after you copied it.
• Nobody approved it. The message went to a mailbox nobody reads, or a privacy forwarding address filtered it.
• A transfer lock applied because of a registration, transfer or registrant change you had forgotten.
• The domain had already expired or entered redemption, at which point renewal is the only route. What happens when a domain expires covers the stages.
• Somebody clicked reject at the old registrar, sometimes by accident, sometimes as a retention tactic.
• The registry has a hold on the name for an unpaid balance or an open dispute. Only the current registrar can clear that.

If it has simply stalled, check the order status at the new registrar before contacting anyone. More often than not, the window has simply not run out.

When not to transfer

The honest answer is sometimes leave it alone:

• It expires in the next couple of weeks. Renew now, transfer later.
• You are mid-migration on the site or the mail. Finish one job, confirm it, then start the other.
• You only wanted to change hosts. Moving the website does not require moving the registration.
• You are inside a 60 day lock. Nothing speeds this up.
• You cannot get into the account. Recover access first, because without it there is no code and no approval.

How AldoMedia handles it

Most transfers we are asked to run start the same way, with a business whose domain sits in an account nobody can log into. We work out what state the registration is in and say honestly whether it is worth moving.

If the name is somewhere you can no longer reach, start at the support centre or call 716-771-2536. Recovering access is a different job to transferring, and it comes first.