Walkthrough · Beginner · roughly 15 minutes of work, and up to 5 days before the transfer completes
How to Transfer a Domain
How to shift a domain between registrars while the website keeps running untouched, without the guessing — the steps in order, the snag ahead of time, and the tip our support team repeats daily.
The short answer
The job: shift a domain between registrars while the website keeps running untouched. Time to set aside: roughly 15 minutes of work, and up to 5 days before the transfer completes. Skill needed: beginner.
Below are the precise steps, the classic stumble, and one tip from the support desk. Wherever the platform already does a step for you, the guide says so rather than handing you a machine's chores.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 18 August 2026
Beginner
Skill rating
Quick
Time budget
5
Steps in total
24/7
Support on call
No technical background needed. This walkthrough was written for first-timers, proven on our own hardware, and honest about which parts are genuinely tricky rather than merely unfamiliar.
First rule: read the snag section before you start, not afterwards. It was distilled from the tickets of everyone who tried the other order.
The route, mapped end to end
Over the whole job, you will unlock it and get the auth code, watch the timing rules, start it at the receiving registrar, approve both messages and confirm dns came through intact.
Every stage is a few minutes of unhurried clicking — the total depends mostly on how well you already know the control panel. The detailed instructions are further down; read the whole path once before you begin.
Where it comes off, and how to stay on
Starting a transfer while WHOIS privacy still hides the registrant address. Approval emails arrive in a proxy inbox nobody reads, and five days later the transfer quietly lapses.
Forewarned is genuinely forearmed here. This one mistake accounts for most of the frustration the topic ever causes — and it disappears entirely once somebody points it out.
The habit that keeps this easy for good
Move names early in their term rather than in the last stretch before renewal. The bonus year most transfers add sits on top of the time you already have, so an early move costs nothing at all.
A minute spent now repays itself every time this job comes round again — and like almost every hosting job, come round it will.
The parts that look after themselves here
Steps that never deserved your time are taken out: certificates issue and reissue themselves, the installer handles application setup, the daily copy absorbs the what-ifs, and per-site settings live in a panel rather than a configuration file. The guide covers the remainder — the part that is actually about your site.
Stopped mid-guide at an awkward hour? That is exactly what round-the-clock support is for — say which step you are on and we take it from there.
Why this job is shorter on our plans
Every walkthrough in this library is run on the platform we actually operate — cPanel, LiteSpeed, NVMe, one-click installs — so the instructions match your screen rather than gesturing at it from a distance.
Hosted somewhere else already? We move the whole site at no charge, usually within 24 hours, and it goes on answering visitors throughout.
- Every step checked exactly as published
- The snag named before it arrives
- The dull steps taken out of your way
- People reachable at any hour you stall
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Help that keeps your hours, not ours
Stuck on step three at midnight? Support answers at any hour, mid-walkthrough included.
The snag, flagged up front
The classic error for this particular task is named before step one, which is how roughly 15 minutes of work, and up to 5 days before the transfer completes stays roughly 15 minutes of work, and up to 5 days before the transfer completes.
Honest about how big it is
Shift a domain between registrars while the website keeps running untouched is a beginner-level job — set aside roughly 15 minutes of work, and up to 5 days before the transfer completes, with the platform-absorbed steps marked.
Taken from real tickets
These guides came out of the support queue, so every snag flagged is one people genuinely hit.
The dull parts automated
SSL, backups and installs look after themselves here, leaving the guide to cover only what is genuinely yours.
Jargon never charges you
Every term is defined on the spot or linked to the jargon buster — nothing assumes prior knowledge.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Unlock it and get the auth code
At the registrar that holds the name, turn the transfer lock off and ask for the EPP or auth code. That code is in effect the password proving the name is yours to move.
- 2
Watch the timing rules
A name is frozen for sixty days after registration or after a previous transfer, and starting one a fortnight before expiry invites trouble. Renewal close? Renew first and transfer after.
- 3
Start it at the receiving registrar
Enter the domain and the auth code at the new registrar and pay. Most endings add a whole extra year to the term you already hold, so no time is lost in the move.
- 4
Approve both messages
Watch the registrant inbox for approval links from each side. Clicking them without delay often cuts the usual five-day window down to hours at many registrars.
- 5
Confirm DNS came through intact
Nameserver settings usually travel unchanged, but load the site and send a test message anyway. Afterwards, switch the transfer lock back on at the receiving registrar.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- WordPress Toolkit, with the updates seen to for you
- 99.9% uptime as the target, watched around the clock
- Money back within 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer plans
- LiteSpeed caching in the server itself rather than bolted on by plugin
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for any client
- A renewal figure identical to the one you registered at
- Staging copies for trying a change before it goes live
- NVMe SSD storage on every tier, not only the dear ones
- Your existing site brought across by our engineers, at no charge
Frequently Asked
The questions that come up most
Does the site go down while a transfer runs?
It does not. A transfer changes which registrar administers the name; it never touches which server answers for it. Leave the nameservers alone and visitors see nothing at all. Changing host is a separate job for another day.
Why has my transfer stalled?
Almost every stall comes down to four things: the lock was never lifted, the auth code is wrong, the sixty-day freeze applies, or an approval email is sitting unclicked. Rule those out and what remains is a hold at the losing registrar that only their support team can lift.
Do plans include copies I can restore myself?
Yes — every plan gets a daily copy, and the restore runs from your panel in minutes: files, databases or both, at three in the morning with no ticket queue in the way. Keeping a further copy offsite is still a sound habit, and nothing here stops you.
Will you move my existing site free of charge?
Yes. Open a ticket with the login for your current host and we bring the lot across — files, databases, mailboxes, configuration. You check the copy before DNS moves, and the old site keeps taking traffic right up to the moment the new one serves it, so nobody meets a gap.
Keep reading
How to Publish a DMARC Policy
Instruct receiving servers on how to treat mail that flunks your authentication — intermediate level, about 15 minutes plus a monitoring month.
How to Keep Site Software Updated
A routine that patches your software's holes before anyone gets around to exploiting them — beginner level, about 15 minutes weekly.
TLD (Top-Level Domain) (Glossary)
A single term without the jargon: what it means, why it counts, and where it catches people out.
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Changing hosts? Run through our checklist first.
A plain order of work for a move nobody visiting will notice: which files go over first, how to carry the mail across without losing a message, when exactly to repoint DNS, and the two mistakes behind nearly every outage we are asked to rescue.
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