Domain Lifecycle

The lifecycle for gTLDs that we provide services for are based around RFCs 5730 (Hollenbeck, RFC5730, 2009), 5731 (Hollenbeck, RFC5731, 2009) and 3915 (Hollenbeck, RFC3915, 2004).

RFCs 5730 and 5731 define the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) interface for domain names including domain name registration, updates, transfers, renewals and deletes. RFC 3915 defines grace periods for allowing chargeable events such as registrations and renewals to be undone.

Registrars will be able to register domain names that are not already registered for a period of one to ten years. Registrars will be able to renew their domain names to extend the registration period and may also delete domain names. If a domain name reaches the end of its registration period then it will be automatically renewed for one year.

gTLD Lifecycles

Domain names will auto renew on the date of expiry.

All grace periods and corresponding end dates will appear in the response to a <domain:info> command.

State changes defined in the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) system are considered exceptions to the lifecycle.

Transfers

Domain transfers follow the process described in the ICANN policy on transfer of registrations between registrars.

Transfer requests take up to 5 days to complete, during which time the registrar of record may reject the transfer and prevent it from completing.

Nominet’s transfer implementation has the following properties:

• The gaining registrar sends the transfer request to the registry.
• The registry will respond with a success or failure.
• If successful a poll event will be sent to the losing registrar.
• The transfer can be approved or rejected by the losing registrar.
• The gaining registrar can cancel the transfer request if not already approved or rejected by the losing registrar.
• The transfer will be automatically approved by Nominet after five days if not already approved, rejected or cancelled.
• Poll events will be sent to registrars if an action is performed by another party i.e. Nominet or any other registrar.
• Domains cannot be transferred during the redemption grace period.

For all Nominet gTLDs, domain names cannot be transferred for 60 days after registration. These domains will be locked preventing transfer.

Transfer lock period

Registrar Notifications

Nominet will need to contact registrars at various points in the domain lifecycle. These notifications will be made via EPP poll messages as specified in RFC 5730.