Confused about when your domain expires and when you need to renew it? You’re in the right place! At Epik, we try to streamline the process to make it easy to renew. To better understand how domain life cycles operate across the industry, check out our article, What is the Life Cycle of a Domain?
A Guide for Domain Owners:
Registration & Transfer
When you register a domain, it has at minimum one year (and, for most TLDs, a maximum of ten years) of active status.
If you transfer a domain from another registrar to us, you’ll get the remaining time from your old registrar plus an extra year upon transfer. Transfers involve a payment that extends the active status of your domain by another year.
Note: Some domains have special pricing due to their premium status, which can extend the active time upon renewal
Renewals
As your domain’s registration period nears its end, we’ll send you emails reminding you to renew it, or notifying you of automatic renewal that will be happening. Renewing your domain for another year involves a payment at our current renewal price. You can renew for multiple years, but you can’t exceed a total of ten years. For example, if your domain has one week left before expiration, you can renew it for between one to nine years, but not for ten years, as that would exceed the limit.
What Happens When a Domain Expires
Expired domains
At Epik, our process for expired domains is a little different than some other registrars. The biggest difference is how we handle expired domains.
When you reach your Epik domain’s expiration date, the domain will be prescriptively renewed. You’ll then have a thirty-day grace period to renew your domain before it is up for grabs.
Different Registrars give clients different time periods to renew their domain during a grace period after expiration. At Epik, that time period is 30 days, day 1 being the day the domain expires (time stamp included, which is in UTC!)
Eventually, any expired domains that aren’t renewed, that domain name is sent to NameLiquidate, for a seven-day auction. This runs roughly a few days after the grace period is over and the domain is not renewed. If the name is sold at NameLiquidate, the new owner gets the name, pays a renewal as well, and this flow is complete for the name.
Redeeming an Expired Domain
If the previous owner wishes to redeem the name after day 30, even if it’s in NameLiquidate and if the auction is active, we will facilitate this. We have a fee for this redeeming process (in addition to the renewal fee). However, if your domain has been sold on NameLiquidate, you cannot reclaim it. If the domain remains unsold The domain then enters a Redeem Grace Period, during which you can still redeem it by paying the redeem fee and renewal fees.