← All guides  ·  Lifecycle

Pending delete: the final five days

pendingDelete is the last status a domain ever holds. Once a gTLD domain enters it, two things are guaranteed: nobody can save it, and it will be deleted in exactly five days. That precision makes it the most interesting stage for anyone hoping to catch the name.

What pending delete means

• The redemption period ended with no restore. The previous owner's rights are gone — even they can't get it back now.
• The domain is removed from the zone file, so it doesn't resolve anywhere.
• No registrar can renew, restore, transfer or register it. The countdown is purely mechanical.

Exactly when does it drop?

For .com and .net, Verisign processes deletions in a daily batch starting around 2:00pm US Eastern time (11am Pacific, 7pm UK). The released names become registrable the instant they're processed, which is why drop-catching services hammer the registry with registration attempts in those seconds.

If you know the date a domain entered pending delete, the drop date is that date plus five days. Our checker estimates this from the registry's "last changed" timestamp when it's available.

Can you register it yourself the moment it drops?

You can try — it costs nothing to attempt — but be realistic. For any domain with traffic, age or keyword value, professional drop-catchers (DropCatch, SnapNames, NameJet and the registrars' own services) compete with dedicated registrar connections. A human refreshing a registrar search box wins only when nobody else cared about the name.

Realistic strategy:

• Low-value name nobody else wants? Set a reminder for drop day, then register it normally a few hours after the drop window.
• Name with any obvious value? Place a backorder — ideally with more than one service, since they only charge on success.

Pending delete in ccTLDs

Country registries don't all use the status. Nominet (.uk) names simply show "suspended" until they're dropped around day 92 after expiry; .de names can vanish with almost no warning. The five-day rule is a gTLD convention — check the lifecycle for your ending in our TLD table.