WHOIS Lookup

What happens when a domain expires?

Less than most people think is guaranteed. ICANN's rules make a registrar send reminders about a month and a week before expiry and once after, but a registrar may delete an expired .com, .org or other generic name at any time after it expires.

The one guaranteed safety net comes after a deletion: 30 days of redemption, when only the last owner can restore the name, usually for a restore fee. Then 5 days of pending delete, and the name is free for anyone. For .com, the registry gives registrars up to 45 days to delete an unpaid auto-renewal, so a .com name can stay recoverable for about 80 days, or much less.

Country domains (.de, .uk, .jp…) follow their own registry's rules, so this tool shows their expiry date without projecting the stages after it.

How to check a domain's expiration date

Look up the domain above: the lifecycle shows the expiry date, the days left and, for generic domains, the latest date it could be deleted. Right after a .com expires, its registry renews it automatically while the registrar decides, so the date can jump a year ahead though nobody paid: the status then shows autoRenewPeriod.

1. 1

   Expires · Day 0

   Reminders before and after; the website may keep working for a while.

2. 2

   Registrar's grace · 0–45 days

   The registrar decides how long the owner can still renew at the normal price.

3. 3

   Redemption · 30 days

   Deleted, out of the DNS. Only the last owner can restore it, for a fee.

4. 4

   Pending delete · 5 days

   Nothing can stop the deletion now.

5. 5

   Free again · ≈ day 80 at the latest (.com)

   Anyone can register it, often a backorder service that was waiting for it.

WHOIS vs RDAP: what's the difference?

WHOIS (RFC 3912) is a plain-text protocol on port 43: one line of question, a page of free text back, in a layout every registry invents for itself. RDAP is its replacement: an HTTPS request with a JSON answer in one standard format, with fields marked when they're redacted.

Since 28 January 2025, generic-domain registries and registrars no longer have to run WHOIS at all, and ICANN calls RDAP the definitive source. .com is the exception: Verisign's contract still requires port 43. Many country registries have no RDAP yet, so a good lookup needs both.

WHOIS for an IP address or AS number

IP addresses and AS numbers aren't sold by registrars: the five regional internet registries (ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC) hand them out, and their RDAP records name the holder, the network block and the abuse contact. Type an address or an AS number above and the tool asks the right registry.

For where an address is used and what kind of connection it is, use IP Lookup; for a network's prefixes and peers, ASN Lookup.

WHOIS API

The same lookup as JSON, free, with CORS for browsers: send a domain, URL, IP or AS number. Fields stay compatible with our older API; errors carry a code and, when the registry is busy, a Retry-After header.

$ curl "https://dnsrobot.net/api/whois?q=google.com"
{
  "kind": "domain", "domain": "google.com",
  "registeredOn": "1997-09-15T04:00:00Z", "expiresOn": "2028-09-14T04:00:00Z",
  "registrar": { "name": "MarkMonitor Inc.", "ianaId": "292", "abuseEmail": "abusecomplaints@markmonitor.com", … },
  "status": ["clientDeleteProhibited", "clientTransferProhibited", …],
  "nameServers": ["ns1.google.com", …], "dnssec": "unsigned",
  "source": "rdap", "servers": ["https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/", "https://rdap.markmonitor.com/"], …
}

$ curl -X POST https://dnsrobot.net/api/whois \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"domain": "8.8.8.8"}'
{
  "kind": "ip", "ip": "8.8.8.8", "name": "GOGL", "cidr": "8.8.8.0/24",
  "organization": "Google LLC", "rir": "ARIN", "abuseEmail": "network-abuse@google.com", …
}