Transfer a domain to another registrar

When you transfer a domain name to another registrar, you are moving the domain management, including billing, to a new provider. In this guide you will learn how to transfer your domain name from WordPress.com to another registrar.

Take the following into consideration before you start your domain transfer:

• Transferring your domain from WordPress.com to another provider takes five to seven days to complete. If you need your new website working immediately, change the name servers first before starting the official transfer.
• You must wait 60 days after registering or transferring a domain before you can transfer it again. If your domain is within that period, you will see a “clientTransferProhibited” status. You can change the name servers in the meantime to point the domain to the intended site.
• Domain settings will be locked during the transfer. Make any necessary changes before you start the transfer:
  • Name servers (website location settings)
  • DNS records (technical routing information)
  • Domain contact details (the email address the transfer authorization code is sent to)

The first step in transferring your domain name from WordPress.com to another provider is to unlock the domain name and get a transfer authorization code. Your new provider may refer to the transfer authorization code as the EPP code or auth code.

Follow these steps to begin the transfer of your domain to a new provider:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Domains (or Hosting → Domains if using WP Admin).
3. Click the registered domain that you wish to transfer.
4. Click the Transfer button on the right side of the screen.
   • If you don’t have this option, ensure the domain is owned by you and not by another admin on the site. Only the domain owner can transfer their domain. Usually, this is the user who purchased the domain.
5. Under the “Transfer to another registrar” section, click on the toggle option for “Transfer lock on” to disable the transfer lock.

6. Click the “Get authorization code” button.
7. You will see a banner message at the top of the screen confirming the authorization code has been sent to your email.
   • Please allow up to 15 minutes for the email with the code to arrive.
   • The code is sent to the email address you have provided in the domain contact details, which may differ from the email address you use for your WordPress.com account.
   • If you no longer have access to this email address, follow these instructions to update the contact information for your domain, then resend yourself the code.

Once you have the authorization code, visit your new provider’s website to provide them with the code and start the transfer to their platform.

We’ve listed instructions from popular domain providers below.

Instructions for common domain providers (click to reveal)

• 1&1
• BlueHost
• DreamHost
• GoDaddy

• inMotion
• Namecheap
• Register.com
• Squarespace

Once the new registrar accepts the authorization code, you cannot make any changes to the domain, such as editing DNS records. If you need to make any changes, cancel the domain transfer, make the changes, and then restart the transfer to the new provider.

Once you confirm the transfer to the new provider, most TLDs have a five-day waiting period until the transfer processes and your domain is moved to your new provider. Shortly after you initiate the transfer to the new host, we will email the registrant’s email address with a link to confirm or cancel the domain transfer. By confirming the outgoing transfer, the transfer to the new provider will be processed sooner than 5 days (and often within the same day.)

Depending on which phase the transfer of the domain name is at, you can use one of the following options to cancel your domain transfer:

• After a domain transfer is initiated, you should receive an email with further instructions. This email will include an option to cancel the domain transfer.
• Contact your new provider and ask if it’s possible for them to cancel the transfer.
• Re-lock your domain name through your WordPress.com dashboard by following the same steps you took to unlock the domain.

When you start the transfer process, this will unlock the domain and disable privacy protection, so the domain can be transferred.

Most domain names registered at WordPress.com have GDPR protection, which means registrant contact information is not visible publicly, regardless of whether the domain has Privacy Protection in place. For these domains, disabling privacy will not result in contact info being publicly published.

In rare cases, privacy protection may not be disabled automatically, causing the transfer to fail. You can disable privacy protection manually and restart the transfer.