Each domain name has its own registration and expiration dates. Most domain names can be registered for a period from 1 to 10 years. If necessary, they can be renewed while they are still active, or they can be reactivated after their expiration date.

The Domain Registry marks any domain name as expired usually around midnight on the last day before expiration. After that, the nameservers of a domain name are changed to Namecheap parking nameservers, and the respective website and email service cease to work.

The majority of expired domain names will remain in your Namecheap account for 30 days after the expiration date.

The expired domain names will appear in the Domain List as follows:

1) Labeled with the Grace Status:

2) Labeled with the Expired Status:

During this time, you may reactivate them directly from your Namecheap account.

If not reactivated, the respective domain names will be removed from the Domain List and will enter the Redemption Grace Period. It may still be possible to restore the domain name with the help of our 24/7 Customer Support Team.

Please be aware that there is an additional redemption fee associated with this.

NOTE: Some of the ccTLD domains (.CH, *.ES, .FR, .LI, *.PE, *.SG and .DE, .EU) are marked as expired several days before their actual expiration date. You can find more information about the domain name grace period in this this article.

After the expiration date, Namecheap parking page will be displayed instead of your website. Keep in mind that any stored website files on your hosting account will not be affected. However, all emails that are subsequently sent to your domain name-based email address will be lost.

NOTE: If your domain name is reactivated within the 30-day Grace Period, its respective DNS settings will be restored. Due to DNS propagation, it  might take approximately 24-48 hours for any domain-related services to start working again.

The contact information of expired domain names cannot be changed or deleted. The Edit button in the Domain Contacts section will be simply disabled. Unless your domain has an active and renewed privacy protection subscription, these details will remain listed for your domain name in the public Whois until the domain is deleted by the Registry.

NOTE: After Domain Privacy service has expired, there is still a 16-day grace period when your domain name’s contact details are still protected. This service can be added for free to any eligible domain name.

Additionally, for most gTLDs, your domain name’s contact details will not be displayed in the Whois search since the recent GDPR implementation.

To ensure that services will not expire unnecessarily, we will send email reminders (30 days, 15 days, 7 days and 1 day, respectively) before the actual expiration date as well as on the expiration date itself.

These email reminders will be sent to two email addresses (if they are different): 1) your account’s primary email address and 2) your domain Registrant email address.

You may also prefer to set up automatic renewal for your domain names so they are renewed automatically.

That’s it!