How expired .com domains become available again
Every day around 100,000 .com domains reach the end of their life and become free for anyone to register. Here is exactly how that works, when it happens, and how to get one — from the registry’s own rules and our daily measurements.
- What happens when a .com domain expires?
- How long after a .com expires does it become available?
- What time do expired .com domains drop?
- Can you tell exactly which day a domain will become available?
- How do I register a domain the moment it becomes available?
- Do most expired domains get registered again straight away?
- How can I check whether a domain is really available?
- What does Domains Open do?
What happens when a .com domain expires?
It is not released straight away. It passes through three stages first:
- Grace period, up to 45 days. The registrar keeps it and the owner can still renew as normal. The registrar decides when to delete it.
- Redemption, 30 days. Deleted, but only the previous owner can get it back.
- Pending delete, 5 days. Nobody can register or recover it.
After that the registry releases it and anyone can register it at the normal price.
How long after a .com expires does it become available?
Usually about 7 to 12 weeks. The fixed part is 37 days from the moment the registrar deletes the name: each step completes on the registry’s next daily batch, so redemption lasts 31 days in practice and pending delete 6. The unknown part is when the registrar deletes it — we have seen anywhere from 11 to 45 days after expiry, most often around day 31 or day 41.
What time do expired .com domains drop?
Once a day. Since 1 October 2026 the daily .com release starts at 12:00 UTC — 8:00 a.m. Eastern and 5:00 a.m. Pacific while daylight saving time is on, an hour earlier in local time after it ends. Names come out over roughly the next hour, in no published order. Our own records agree: on 11 October 2026 a drop-catching service registered one of that day’s names at 12:03 UTC. Before October 2026 the release started at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Can you tell exactly which day a domain will become available?
Yes, once it reaches pending delete: it is released on the sixth day after it entered that status. We checked this rule against Verisign’s registry records for 550 names and it matched every one. Before the registrar deletes a name, nobody can know the day — only a window of about five weeks.
How do I register a domain the moment it becomes available?
Know the day, be ready at the drop time, and register it at any registrar as soon as it shows as available. For a name nobody else wants, that is all it takes, at the normal price. When several people want the same name, the registry accepts the first valid request, and backorder services that send many requests at once usually win.
Domains Open watches the registry for you and alerts you the moment a watched name opens, with links to register it yourself.
Do most expired domains get registered again straight away?
No. A study of .com deletions found only about one in ten deleted names was re-registered on the day it dropped. Most are never contested, which is why good names can still be registered by anyone at the ordinary price.
How can I check whether a domain is really available?
Ask the registry, not DNS. A name in redemption or pending delete vanishes from DNS weeks before it is free, so a DNS lookup can call a name available while someone still owns it. The reliable answer comes from the registry’s RDAP service — for .com, Verisign’s — which is what Domains Open checks.
What does Domains Open do?
It scores every .com on the daily release list on the name itself — length, real words, how it sounds, how it would work as a brand — shows the few worth your time before and after they drop, and confirms with the registry which ones are still unregistered. It is free, and it never buys, bids or holds payment details: you register names yourself, wherever you like.