A guide to Expired Domains, Domain Backorders and ICANN domain recovery process
Help! My domain is missing!
What is the domain life cycle of a domain?
My domain is Active but missing from my account
My domain has Expired status and missing from my account
My domain is in Redemption Status and missing from my account
My domain is in Pending Delete Status and missing from my account
My domain is still missing. How to recover my domain name?
Summary and advice about how to get back a lost domain
February 17, 2025
You just came back from a relaxing holiday and while checking your emails you notice a domain expire reminder. You franticly login to your account, but the domain is not in your account. Your heart sinks. You get a little sad then very angry. You don't know what to do.
Beside being angry and sad there are couple of things you should be doing.
First of all need to check your mailbox for the latest renewal invoice, to check when the domain expires.
Second step will be talking with your registrar (with the support team of the company where you registered the domain) so they can investigate what may have happened.
Make sure to check whois to see where your domain currently is
If all this does not help, last resort can be filing a case at ICANN and/or talking with a lawyer specializing in domain names.
There are multiple stages when a domain can change ownership, so it helps to understand the domain life cycle.
Domains, just like many other things in life have a life cycle. They are registered (created), they are being used (active), they expire (redemption period) and get deleted (pending delete period).
When a domain is available that means anyone can register it.
When a domain is active that means the domain has an expire date which is in the future.
When a domain is expired, that means the domain's expire date is in the past.
When a domain is in grace period, that means your registrars (the company where you can registered the domain) offers grace period. This means they do not delete your domain right away on the expire date but usually give you extra 33 days to pay the renewal fee.
When/if the renewal is not done by day 33, than the domain will go to redemption period, which means the domain still can be recovered, but for a higher fee. The higher fee is due to the fact, that in the early days of the internet the domain redemption process could be done manually only, which justified a higher fee.
When a domain is in pending delete period not renewed during redemption stage, that domain will go into pending delete status. During this pending delete period the domain cannot be re-registered, nor can be redeemed and renewed.
So your first task is to identify in which status your domain currently is. Is it an active domain, did it expire and is in redemption or went into pending deletion phase?
If the domain status is active according to the domain life cycle you need to check the followings:
Did I login to my account at the right domain registrar?
Did I login to the right account at my registrar?
If you are sure you logged into the right account and domain indeed not there do the following:
Check your mailbox for the last renewal invoice for the domain. If according to the invoice the domain's expire date is in the future then it is most likely just a glitch at the registrar and they should be able to resolve the problem easily. Just shoot an email to your registrar's support team, send a print screen of your account proving that the domain indeed not showing and wait until the issue is resolved.
If based on your last invoice the domain expire date already passed
but the domain is still (and has new expire date) that can mean 2 thing:
The domain was sold on the registrar's expired market place.
This scenario can be confirmed by the support team of the registrar, by checking the order history of the domain name.
Your account at the registrar was hacked and your domain was stolen.
This scenario can be also fully confirmed by the support team of the registrar by checking the login history of your account.
The good news that this can be easily fixed by your registrar. Most registrars do not even remove expired domains from your account, but they list them with expired status. If the domain would not be listed, just ask their support team that you would like to recover the domain name and they will give you the exact instructions of what needs to be done.
You also do not need to panic if you find your domain in redemption status, the domain still yours and can be recovered easily, though for a higher fee. If you are a forgetful person we would recommend to renew the domain for 10 years, so you do not need to worry about renewing the domain for many many years. The good news that during redemption period the zone file won't work which means your domain will be offline which can serve as a reminder that the domain is due to be renewed.
The pending delete status is a bit trickier as your registrar won't be able to recover the domain for you, if your domain enters the process of being deleted by the registry. But the good news that there are companies in existence like Catch.club out there who specialize in the service of registering the pending delete domain on your behalf at the registry as soon as the domain status changes to available again.
While you can try manually register domains, we would not recommend it as, backorder companies can do this much faster.
So if the pending delete state domain is really important for you we recommend using a backorder (or so called drop catching) service as if someone else also would like to own the domain and will use a drop catch service, manual registration does not have much chance.
If you missed the domain renewal date, and the domain was sold on the registrar's expired market place your best shot is asking the registrar to help to contact the new owner for a price quote so you can re-purchase the domain. It will probably cost a few thousand USD to buy back the domain, but you can ask for a payment plan option so you do not need to pay the full amount in one transaction. If you are ''lucky'' the new owner already added a sales landing page.
If the domain name is not in your account, and your registrar's support team confirmed that the domain was not sold on the expired marketplace it is likely that the domain was stolen. But do not panic! Is it possible you just transferred the domain to an other registrar and you forgot about? It helps to scan your mailbox for the domain name and look for any transfer domain notification emails. The good thing with domain names that whois pages publicly list where the domain is registered currently. So your next task is to contact the company with the help of whois to see where the domain is currently registered.
At this point your best shot is to ask your registrar and let them investigate if they can find prove of unauthorized access to your account. If yes, they can start a reverse transfer request with the new registrar and recover the domain for you. Unfortunately this is a time consuming process so get ready to wait weeks for a result.
If the registrar is not supportive in the recovery process you can also file an ICANN case . This won't magically solve your problem, but at least put some pressure on the registrar to investigate the case thoroughly.
You may also decide to get a lawyer involved, which will definitely increase the cost of domain recovery, but does not guarantee success unfortunately.
We hope you do not ever need to deal with a situation when your domain seems to be stolen and you can always keep your domains renewed for at least 5 years. We would just recommend to set a reminder of the domain registration in your calendar, so it can be a yearly chore to check the domain's expire date.
Some registrars even offer a domain expiration date change service, which means you can set your domain's expiration date to your birthday (or the 1st of January) making it easy to remember the expiration date and your domain never enters the pending deletion period nor expires without you knowing about.
