Transferring a Domain After a Sale: Push vs Transfer

You've agreed a price and the money is secured. Now the domain has to actually move — and this is the step where first-time sellers panic, because the mechanics are unfamiliar and the buyer is watching.

There are only two routes.

Route 1: Account push (same registrar)

If you and the buyer both have accounts at the same registrar, the domain moves between accounts internally.

• Instant — typically seconds to minutes
• Free at most registrars
• No auth code, no waiting period
• Not affected by the 60-day lock

You'll usually need the buyer's account username or the email on their account. Then it's a few clicks.

This is by far the smoothest way to complete a sale, and it's a genuine argument for holding your portfolio at a registrar other investors and buyers commonly use. When both parties are already in the same place, the transfer stops being a step at all.

Route 2: Registrar transfer (different registrars)

If the buyer is elsewhere, the domain moves between companies through ICANN's transfer process.

Your side:

1. Unlock the domain. Registrar lock is on by default; toggle it off.
2. Get the auth code (also called an EPP code or transfer key) from your registrar's control panel.
3. Send the auth code to the buyer — through escrow or the marketplace, not casually over email.
4. Make sure the admin email on the domain is one you can access, since approval requests go there.

Their side: they initiate the transfer at their registrar and pay a transfer fee, which usually includes an added year of registration.

Then: an approval email arrives, and the transfer completes. It typically takes a few days, and can take up to five. Tell the buyer this in advance — silence during a multi-day wait reads as something having gone wrong.

The 60-day lock

The one that catches people out.

ICANN imposes a 60-day transfer lock after a domain is registered, transferred between registrars, or has its registrant contact details changed. During that window, the domain cannot be transferred to another registrar.

Where this bites: you win an expired auction on Tuesday, list the name, and it sells on Friday to a buyer at a different registrar. You now can't complete a registrar transfer for two months.

It is not a dead end. Options:

• Push instead, if the buyer will open an account at your registrar. Pushes aren't affected.
• Hold the domain in escrow terms and complete the transfer when the lock expires, with the buyer's agreement.
• Be upfront immediately. A buyer told about a delay before they pay is fine. A buyer who discovers it after paying assumes they've been scammed.

Check the lock status before you agree a completion date, not after.

A sequence that avoids trouble

1. Agree price, and agree the transfer method explicitly
2. Check for a 60-day lock before promising a timeline
3. Open escrow, or use the marketplace
4. Wait for confirmation that funds are held and cleared
5. Then push, or unlock and release the auth code
6. Tell the buyer what to expect and roughly how long
7. Confirm the buyer has received it
8. Escrow releases the funds

After it's gone

Some housekeeping that's easy to forget:

• Remove it from every marketplace you listed it on. A sold name still listed elsewhere generates inquiries you can't fulfill and looks careless.
• Remove it from your own for-sale page or portfolio list. This is worth a specific mention: I had three sold or under-contract names still showing as available on my own site, because my portfolio list wasn't updated when the sales closed.
• Turn off auto-renew so you don't pay for a domain you no longer own.
• Record the sale — name, gross, commission, net, acquisition cost, hold time. This is how you eventually know your real numbers.
• Keep the records for tax. It's income.

Special cases

Lease-to-own. The domain typically stays under the platform's control until the term completes, so there's no transfer to manage at the point of sale. The buyer gets use of it; ownership moves when it's paid off.

Bulk sales. Selling several names to one buyer is much easier as a push. Multiple simultaneous registrar transfers are tedious and each can fail independently.

Domains with active email. If the previous owner was running email on the domain, transferring will break it. Not your problem after the sale, but worth flagging to a buyer who may not realize — it's the kind of small courtesy that generates referrals.