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The redemption period, explained

The redemption grace period is the safety net of the domain world. It exists because people genuinely forget to renew — an expired card, a dead mailbox, an employee who left — and losing a business's domain over that would be brutal. It's defined in RFC 3915 and applies to all gTLDs.

When does redemption start?

Redemption begins when the registrar deletes the domain at the registry — usually after their ~30-day grace period following expiry, though it can be sooner. The domain's status changes to redemptionPeriod and it stops resolving entirely.

What can happen during redemption?

• The previous owner can restore it. They ask their registrar, pay a restoration fee, and the domain comes back exactly as it was.
• Nobody else can touch it. It can't be registered, transferred or bought. Backorder services will happily take your order, but they're just queueing for the drop.

What does restoration cost?

The registry charges the registrar a wholesale restore fee, and the registrar adds its own margin. Typical end prices:

It's painful, but always cheaper than trying to buy the domain back after someone else catches it.

How long does it last?

Exactly 30 days for gTLDs. After that the domain moves to pendingDelete for 5 days, and then it drops. Once pendingDelete begins, restoration is impossible — the 30 days of redemption are the last chance.

Country-code domains do it differently

ccTLD registries run their own versions: Nominet (.uk) suspends for ~60 days after the 30-day grace, SIDN (.nl) uses a 40-day quarantine, AFNIC (.fr) a 28-day redemption. The principle is the same — a recovery window for the old owner — but the lengths vary. See our table of rules by TLD.