Delegation · Registry edit · 5 minutes plus propagation
How to change your nameservers — Moving Delegation Without Leaving Half a Zone Behind
The five-minute part is at the registrar; the part that strands your mail for a week is the record nobody copied.
The short answer
Changing nameservers replaces the NS records the registry publishes for your name, which changes which servers are permitted to answer for it — so the destination zone has to be built first, because from the moment the delegation lands only the new nameservers reply.
Two things turn this from a five-minute edit into an outage: records that were never copied across, and a DNSSEC DS record left at the registry pointing at keys the new nameservers do not hold. Both are dealt with before you touch the delegation, not after.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
Beginner
Level assumed
4
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Free
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A nameserver change is an edit at the registry, made through your registrar. It does not move your registration, your records or your website — it changes the answer to one question: who is allowed to speak for this name.
Everything with teeth in this job happens in the preparation. The registrar edit itself is a single field and takes a minute.
What the edit actually changes
The registry holds a set of NS records for your name and publishes them to the world. Changing nameservers rewrites that set. Resolvers follow it from the root down, so within minutes of the registry accepting the change, new queries are being sent to the new servers instead of the old ones.
Where the nameservers are themselves inside the domain they serve — ns1.yourdomain.com answering for yourdomain.com — the registry also stores glue records holding their IP addresses, because otherwise the lookup would need the answer in order to find the answer. If you run your own nameservers, the glue is edited at the registrar too, and forgetting it produces a name that resolves for nobody.
Nothing in the zone travels with it
A common and expensive assumption is that records follow the delegation. They do not. The zone is a file held by whichever provider is authoritative, and pointing the name somewhere else simply stops anyone reading the old copy. Nobody transfers it for you.
Export the whole thing before you begin. Not just the A record for the website: the AAAA records, every CNAME, the full MX set with priorities intact, and all of the TXT entries. If the provider offers a zone file download, take it; if not, photograph the list and count the rows.
DNSSEC: the trap that turns a move into an outage
If the name is signed, the registry holds a DS record pointing at the signing keys of the current nameservers. Move the delegation without dealing with it and the DS no longer matches the keys in use, so every validating resolver refuses to answer at all. The name does not degrade — it fails outright, and it fails hardest for the well-run networks whose resolvers validate.
The symptom is SERVFAIL rather than a plain error, which sends people hunting through the zone for a bad record that is not there. Either disable DNSSEC at the registrar a day or two ahead of the move, or arrange the key rollover properly with both providers. Re-enable it once the new nameservers are settled.
The records that get left behind
In descending order of how much trouble they cause when missed: the MX set, which strands inbound mail; the SPF and DKIM TXT records, which do not stop mail but do route it into junk folders; DMARC, which then starts reporting failures nobody understands; any CAA record, which affects certificate issuance; and the verification tokens holding your search console, mail platform and analytics together.
Subdomain records are the quiet ones. Anything on a separate host — mail., shop., a staging site, a booking system — lives as its own record and needs rebuilding by hand. So does any wildcard entry, which is easy to forget precisely because it never appears in a browser's address bar.
The TTLs that decide how long the crossover lasts. Two different clocks apply. Your own records carry a TTL you can lower a day in advance, which shortens the tail on the individual answers. The delegation itself carries a TTL set by the registry, often measured in a day or two, and that one is not yours to change.
In practice the registry updates within minutes and most traffic is on the new zone within a few hours, with the last stragglers arriving over the following day or two. Plan the change for a quiet period rather than trying to make the tail shorter than the registry allows.
Leaving yourself a way back. Do not delete the old zone. Leave it intact at the previous provider for a fortnight after the move: it costs nothing, and it is an immediate reference for whatever turns out to be missing at four o'clock on a Friday.
If the previous provider was also the registrar and you intend to close the account, take the zone export first. Closing a registrar account can take the DNS service with it, which turns a tidy-up into an outage weeks after everyone had stopped watching.
Written against the real panel, not a generic one
Instructions written against imaginary hosting go stale quickly. These are written against the thing itself: the same Zone Editor, the same domain settings, the same buttons in the same order.
A copy is taken daily on every plan, and putting a file or a database back is one click in the panel rather than a support ticket.
- Registry, registrar and DNS host kept apart
- The record named before you go looking for it
- Delegation and zone edits on one screen
- People on the desk at any hour a name misbehaves
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Preparation weighted properly
Most of the guide is spent before the registrar edit, because that is where every failure in this job actually originates.
DNSSEC dealt with in advance
The DS record at the registry is named as a step of its own, along with the SERVFAIL it causes when it is left behind.
A record-by-record copy list
MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, CAA, verification tokens, subdomains and wildcards — ordered by how much trouble each one causes when missed.
Both clocks explained
Your record TTLs, which you can lower ahead of time, and the delegation TTL at the registry, which you cannot.
A way back kept open
Keep the old zone alive for a fortnight; it is the cheapest insurance in domain management.
Support through the crossover
People on the desk at any hour, including the one where two providers disagree about what your zone contains.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Export the zone exactly as it stands
Take a zone file download if the current provider offers one, and a photograph of the record list if not. Count the rows. A and AAAA, every CNAME, the MX set with its priorities, every TXT entry, any CAA, and each subdomain record.
- 2
Build the destination zone before you touch the registrar
Enter all of those records at the receiving provider first. The new nameservers then hold the right answers from the very first query they are asked, and no visitor and no message meets a gap.
- 3
Clear DNSSEC, then change the delegation
If the name is signed, turn DNSSEC off at the registrar and let the DS record clear before you go further. Then replace the nameserver set in one edit, removing every old entry rather than leaving a mixed pair.
- 4
Query the parent, then test mail and web
Look up the NS records for the name to confirm the registry has published the new set. Then load the site, send a message in from an outside account, and re-check any service that verifies your domain by TXT record.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- Full zone control — A, CNAME, MX and TXT — from the panel
- Private nameservers on reseller and VPS accounts
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old certificate lapses
- Mailboxes that answer at the name you hold
- Spam and virus screening in front of every mailbox at your name
- A daily copy, with restores you run yourself from the panel
- People on the support desk every hour of every day
- cPanel, which is what most of the industry already runs
- 99.9% uptime as the target, watched around the clock
- Money back within 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Do my DNS records move with the nameservers?
No, and this is the single most costly assumption in the job. The zone belongs to whichever provider is authoritative, and moving delegation only stops anyone reading the old copy. Every record has to be recreated at the new provider before the change, by you or by whoever is helping you.
The domain returns SERVFAIL since the change. What happened?
Almost certainly a DNSSEC DS record still sitting at the registry, pointing at signing keys the new nameservers do not have. Validating resolvers treat that as tampering and refuse to answer at all. Remove the DS record at the registrar, wait for it to clear, and resolution returns.
How long do the old nameservers keep receiving queries?
Until every resolver's cached copy of the delegation expires, which is governed by a TTL set by the registry and often runs to a day or two. The registry itself updates within minutes, and most of your traffic follows within a few hours.
Can I keep my registrar and only change the nameservers?
Yes — they are separate decisions. Registration stays exactly where it is, the lock and the renewal carry on as before, and only the answering moves. Plenty of names sit at one registrar for years while their DNS is answered somewhere else entirely.
Keep reading
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