Moving a Domain to a New Registrar

A transfer is routine when done in the right order and a headache when it is not. Here is the order.

A domain transfer is routine when it is done in the right order and a headache when it is not. The registrar change itself is mostly paperwork between two companies. The trouble comes from the things that depend on the old registrar: the DNS hosting, the email address that receives the confirmations, and the lock that nobody remembers setting.

Moving a domain does not move your website or your email. Those live wherever your nameservers point, and a registrar transfer leaves that alone, provided you handle DNS properly. Keep that distinction in mind and most of the scary stories lose their sting.

This guide gives the order I use, the checks before you begin, what you will see at each stage, and the failures that account for nearly every stuck transfer.

Registrar, host and DNS are three different jobs

People use "where my domain is" to mean three things. The registrar holds the registration: who the domain belongs to and until when. The DNS provider answers the question "what address does this name point to". The host runs the website or mailbox. At many small companies one login covers all three, which is why a transfer feels risky. It is not, once you have separated them.

The transfer changes who holds the registration; the DNS and hosting stay where the nameservers already point.

Before you start

Check the domain is more than 60 days old and has not changed registrar or owner recently. Most registries block transfers in that window.
Check it is not about to expire. Renewing first can be simpler, and some registrars add the extra year to the end.
Check you can read email at the contact address on file. Confirmation messages go there, and an address on the domain itself is a trap if the mail is hosted by the old provider.
Copy your DNS records to a safe place, or to the destination. A zone export is ideal; a screenshot of every record type is the fallback.
Note the current nameservers. Run dig NS example.com +short and write down the result.

Look at the status codes with whois example.com. A line reading clientTransferProhibited is the registrar lock; serverTransferProhibited or a pending-delete state means you need to talk to the registrar. Some country-code domains use different rules entirely, with their own tags or codes, so read the registry's instructions for your extension before ordering.

Step by step

Disable the privacy proxy if it blocks emails. Only do this if your registrar requires it. Some privacy services forward approval messages and some do not.
Unlock the domain at the current registrar. The setting is usually called "registrar lock" or "transfer lock" and sits in the domain's security options.
Get the authorisation code (EPP code, sometimes "transfer key"). It is a long string, and it is effectively the password to your domain. Copy it exactly, without trailing spaces.
Order the transfer at the new registrar and enter the code when asked. Pay for the one-year extension that normally comes with a transfer.
Approve the confirmation. Either click the link in the email, or approve the request in the old registrar's panel. Many registrars let you approve at once, which speeds the process up. If you do nothing, the transfer waits out the full period.
Wait. The registry allows up to five days for generic domains, and many finish within hours. Country-code domains vary.
Check DNS and nameservers at the new registrar, then re-lock the domain and enable two-factor authentication on the account.

What the process looks like from outside

Typical timing for a clean case: lock removed and code issued in a few minutes; transfer ordered the same day; approval clicked within the hour; domain moved by the following morning. The old registrar sends a notice saying the transfer is pending, and the new one sends a welcome message when it completes. The expiry date normally moves forward by a year.

Most of the elapsed time is waiting, and approving promptly is the only part you control.

What can go wrong

Confirmation emails go to a dead address, so the transfer sits unapproved until it times out.
The domain was registered or transferred less than 60 days earlier and is locked by the registry.
The code is wrong or expired. Request a new one; they are valid for a limited time.
DNS was hosted by the old registrar and stops when the transfer completes. Move DNS first, or make sure the new registrar hosts a copy before you start.
Contact details were changed recently, and the registrar imposes a security hold on transfers afterwards.

The DNS item is the one that causes outages. A registrar's free DNS often ends at the moment the domain leaves. If your site and mail work only because of that DNS, they stop when the transfer completes. The fix is plain and reliable: recreate the zone at the destination, compare it with dig against both servers, and only then order the transfer.

dig @ns1.oldprovider.example example.com A +short
dig @ns1.newprovider.example example.com A +short
dig @ns1.newprovider.example example.com MX +short
dig @ns1.newprovider.example example.com TXT +short

Check the TXT records in particular. SPF, DKIM and site verification records are the easiest to forget, and a missing one shows up days later as mail going to spam.

Transferring only DNS

You do not have to move the domain to move DNS. Add the zone at the new DNS provider, check every record, then change the nameservers at the current registrar. That is a separate and much simpler operation, and you can reverse it in minutes. Lower the TTL on the NS-related records a day ahead if you can; the TTL planner helps with the arithmetic, and the DNS cheat sheet lists the record types you need to copy.

Nameserver changes at the registry are cached for up to two days at the parent level, so keep the old DNS running until traffic to it dries up. Run dig NS example.com @8.8.8.8 from time to time to see what the outside world believes.

Email and the contact address

Mail is the part people forget until Monday morning. If your mailboxes are hosted with the old registrar, the transfer does not move them, and some registrars switch off bundled mail the day the domain leaves. Find out which kind you have. Look at the MX records with dig MX example.com +short: if they point at a mail service you pay for separately, nothing changes. If they point at the registrar's own servers, export the mailboxes or set up the new mail service and update the MX records before you order.

The registrant email matters in a second way. Since the rules on registration data changed, registrars verify the contact address, and a change to it can trigger a hold on transfers. Do not edit contact details in the same week as a transfer unless you have to. If the address is wrong, fix it, wait for the hold to lift, then start.

Choosing where to move it

Pick the new registrar on the unglamorous criteria that actually bite later: that it supports your domain extension, shows renewal prices before you pay, offers two-factor authentication and a registrar lock, and lets you export a zone file and get the EPP code yourself without raising a ticket. If you also want to host DNS or email with them, check those separately and do not assume the registrar is good at them. Keeping the registration, the DNS and the hosting with three different companies is a perfectly reasonable arrangement, and it limits the damage if any one of them has a bad day.

What to look at on your own setup

Run whois example.com before: confirm the status, expiry date and current registrar.
After the transfer, run it again and confirm the registrar has changed and the expiry date has moved.
Run dig NS example.com +short and compare it with the nameservers you wrote down.
Visit the site and send a test email to and from the domain.

Checklist: domain older than 60 days; not close to expiry; contact email readable; DNS records exported; privacy proxy handled; unlocked; EPP code copied; transfer ordered; approval clicked; DNS compared with dig; domain re-locked; two-factor on.