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Tarisu Limited

Moving a domain to another registrar without downtime

A transfer moves the registration, not the website. The downtime people suffer comes from the DNS zone disappearing with the old registrar, and it is entirely avoidable if you do one thing first.

Domains5 min readTarisu Limited

Transferring a domain is one of the few operations in hosting that is genuinely routine and still frightens people, because the thing being moved is the address everything else depends on. It is worth separating two ideas that get confused, because almost all transfer downtime comes from confusing them.

A transfer moves the registration: which company holds the domain on the registry's books and bills you for it. It does not move your website, your mailboxes or your DNS. If nothing else changes, nothing else changes.

Where the downtime actually comes from

The registration moving is harmless. What breaks sites is the DNS zone that the old registrar was hosting for free as part of the registration. When the domain leaves, that zone often goes with it, the nameservers stop answering, and a site that was working perfectly becomes unreachable, not because the transfer failed, but because nothing is left to say where the site lives.

So before anything else: write down every DNS record you currently have. All of them, not just the one pointing at the website. The A records, the CNAME for www and any service aliases, the MX records for mail, and every TXT record (SPF, DKIM, and the verification strings that various services asked you to add months ago and that nobody remembers). The TXT records are the ones people lose, and losing them means mail starts failing spam checks a week later, long after anyone connects it to the transfer.

Then pick one of two safe paths. Either recreate every record at the new provider before you change the nameservers, so the new zone is already correct when traffic moves to it; or leave the nameservers exactly where they are and move only the registration, which is perfectly allowed and is the lowest-risk option when the current DNS host is a third party you are keeping.

What the registry requires

Transfers between registrars are governed by the registry, not by either company, and the rules are the same everywhere for generic extensions:

  • The domain must have been registered for at least 60 days, and must not have been transferred in the last 60 days.
  • The registrar lock must be off. It exists specifically to prevent transfers, which is why it should be on the rest of the time.
  • You need the authorisation code, also called the EPP code or auth code. It is the proof that you are the person who controls the domain.
  • The administrative contact e-mail must be one you can read today. The approval message goes there, and identity protection sometimes hides it behind a forwarder that silently drops mail.
  • A domain in its last few days before expiry, or already expired, should be renewed first rather than transferred.

Country extensions set their own rules and some of them differ, but the shape is the same.

The steps

  1. Unlock the domain at the current registrar and turn off identity protection if it masks the admin e-mail address.
  2. Request the authorisation code. Most registrars show it on screen; some only e-mail it to the registrant. It is single-use and it expires, so start the transfer soon after you have it.
  3. Record the DNS, as above. Do this even if you intend to keep the nameservers.
  4. Start the transfer. Here that is Domains → Transfer in the client area: enter the domain and the code, and a pre-check runs against the registrar before you are charged: it confirms the domain exists, that it is unlocked and that the code is accepted. An invoice is created once the check passes, and the transfer begins when it is paid.
  5. Approve the release. The losing registrar sends a confirmation message to the administrative contact. Approving it moves things along immediately. Ignoring it does not cancel the transfer: the registry releases the domain automatically after five days unless the losing registrar refuses, which they may only do for specific reasons.
  6. Check, then lock. When the transfer completes, confirm the site still loads and that mail still arrives, then turn the registrar lock back on and set auto-renew.

For most generic extensions the transfer adds a year to the registration, so the time remaining is carried over rather than lost. The exact term depends on the extension.

Going the other way

Moving a domain away from us works the same way and we do not make it awkward. The domain's page in the client area has the registrar lock toggle and a button to request the authorisation code; depending on the registry the code is shown on screen or sent to the registrant address by the registry itself. Nobody has to open a ticket to ask permission.

While it is in flight

Do not change nameservers, contact details or anything else on the domain during the transfer window. A domain mid-transfer is in a state both registrars are watching, and edits made then are the usual cause of a transfer that fails and has to be started again from a fresh code. Five quiet days are the cheapest part of the process. Transferring a domain in walks through the same steps with the screens in front of you.

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