Domain Expiry Checker
A domain's expiry date is the one deadline that stops everything — website, email, all of it. Look up any domain's registrar, registration date and expiry countdown from the registry's own data, alongside the DNS that routes to it.
📅 Domain registration
🧭 DNS records
Free with myeventwatch — 3 monitors included, no card required. Expiry and downtime alerts go to your inbox (and Telegram, webhooks and more) before they become outages.
Own more than one domain? Monitor them free with myeventwatch instead of keeping a spreadsheet of dates.
What this checker reads
Every registered domain has a public record at its registry, and this checker reads it through RDAP, the modern, structured replacement for the old WHOIS protocol. From that record it reports the registrar — the company you actually renew with, which people routinely forget after a few years or a change of web agency — the registration date, the expiry date converted into a days-remaining countdown, and the registry status codes, which quietly encode important facts: transfer locks, pending deletions, and holds. Alongside the registration data, the checker resolves the domain's live DNS records — A and AAAA addresses, MX mail servers, nameservers, and the SPF, DMARC and CAA highlights — because an expiry date only matters in the context of what the domain is actually doing today.
The countdown is coloured the same way as everywhere on SysOSX: comfortable beyond ninety days, amber inside ninety, red inside thirty. If the registry has no record for the name at all, the checker says so plainly and flags that the domain may be available to register — a genuinely useful answer when you are scouting names, checking a typo, or verifying that a competitor's spin-off brand is unclaimed. Treat it as a strong hint rather than a guarantee, and confirm on a registrar before you build plans around a name.
The anatomy of a lapsed domain
Expiry is a process, not an instant, and every stage is worse than the last. First the registration lapses and, depending on the registrar and registry, the domain enters a grace period: it still resolves, renewal is still the normal price, and many owners never notice anything happened — which is precisely the danger, because the safety net is quietly being consumed. Next comes a redemption period: the domain stops resolving, the website and mail go dark, and getting it back means a fee many times the renewal price. Finally the domain is deleted and released, and anyone on earth can register it for the standard fee. Drop-catchers watch exactly this window for names with traffic, links and history. A stranger who re-registers your domain inherits your visitors, your bookmarks, your printed materials — and, if they set up mail, password-reset messages addressed to your old domain. Against that, the cost of knowing the date is zero, and the cost of being reminded about it, with the free monitoring linked from every result here, is also zero.
Checking domains you do not own
Registration data is public, and there are good reasons to look up domains that are not yours. Before signing with a supplier or partner, a quick check shows whether their domain is professionally managed or ninety days from chaos. Before buying a second-hand domain, the record reveals its age and registrar history signals. And if you depend on a client's or an employer's domain staying alive, monitoring it means their registrar's forgotten renewal becomes your early warning instead of your outage. Whatever the reason, the date is the date — and it is better learned from a calm lookup than from a browser error.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the expiry date come from?
From the domain registry itself, via RDAP — the registration data protocol that replaced WHOIS. The checker reads the registration record for the registrable domain and reports its registrar, creation date, expiry date and status codes exactly as the registry publishes them.
What happens if the checker says a domain is not registered?
That is a useful answer, not an error: the registry has no record, so the domain may be available to register. We show a friendly notice — but always confirm on a registrar before relying on it, and move quickly if the name matters to you.
What really happens when a domain expires?
The registrar typically gives a grace period, then a redemption period at a much higher fee, then the domain is released and anyone can register it. Services fail in stages — website first or mail first, depending on DNS — and a stranger re-registering your lapsed domain inherits its traffic, links and leftover email routes. Renewing early is incomparably cheaper.
Why do the nameservers matter?
Nameservers are where a domain delegates its DNS. If they point somewhere you no longer control — an old host, a former agency — the domain can be renewed and still route nowhere. This report lists them alongside the live DNS records so you can spot a mismatch.
Can I watch several domains at once?
Yes. The "Monitor this free" button on a result sets up continuous expiry monitoring in myeventwatch, whose free tier covers three monitors and alerts you well before each date — far easier than re-checking a portfolio by hand.