2026-07-14 · Registration

Domain Expired? The Grace Period Timeline (and How to Recover It)

If your domain just expired, you almost certainly still have time to get it back. Under ICANN’s policies a gTLD domain doesn’t drop the instant it expires — it moves through an auto-renew grace period, then a 30-day Redemption Grace Period, then a 5-day pending-delete before it’s released. Renewing during the first window is cheap and instant; recovering it from redemption costs a restore fee.

The timeline

  1. Expiration. The domain lapses. Registrars usually keep resolving it briefly, but that’s not guaranteed — some parking or downtime can start immediately.
  2. Auto-Renew Grace Period — up to ~45 days. If your registrar offers it, this is a window (ICANN describes it as roughly 1–45 days) during which you can simply renew at the normal price (ICANN ERRP FAQ). Under the Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP), your registrar must send at least two renewal reminders before expiration and one after.
  3. Redemption Grace Period (RGP) — 30 days. If it’s deleted, the domain enters redemption for 30 days, during which the original registrant can restore it — usually for a restore/redemption fee on top of renewal (ICANN — Redeeming a Domain in RGP). The ERRP requires all gTLD registries to offer this 30-day RGP.
  4. Pending Delete — 5 days. If it isn’t redeemed, the domain sits in pendingDelete for 5 days, during which nothing can be done.
  5. Release. After pending-delete, the name returns to the available pool and anyone can register it (or a drop-catcher may grab a valuable one instantly).

What to do, by stage

Don’t rely on remembering

Expiry is a single date you have to not miss, sometimes years out. Check any domain’s registration and expiry with our free domain age checker, or let domain monitoring watch the expiry date and the registrar transfer lock for you and alert you well ahead of the deadline.

Sources

Try it now — free, no signup. Check a domain's expiry