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Domain status codes: what each one means

Updated 6 min read

Short answer

Most domain status codes are locks or labels that need nothing from you. clientTransferProhibited (in RDAP, client transfer prohibited) is your registrar’s lock against unwanted transfers: normal, and worth keeping on.

Act now on clientHold or serverHold (the domain is out of DNS), redemptionPeriod or pendingDelete (it was deleted), or a pendingTransfer you didn’t start. What to do.

The domain expiration checker lists a domain’s statuses straight from its registry and says what each one means, beside the expiry date. Free, no account. Check a domain

Every domain has at least one status code, and often several. They come from EPP, the protocol registrars use to manage domains at the registry (RFC 5731), plus the grace period codes of RFC 3915. The meanings and advice below follow ICANN’s own guide, EPP Status Codes: What Do They Mean, and Why Should I Know?

Statuses that need action

Status What it means What to do
clientHold Your registrar has told the registry to keep the domain out of DNS. It doesn’t resolve: no website, no email. ICANN says it is “usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.” Contact your registrar. Check for an unpaid renewal first.
serverHold The registry has taken the domain out of DNS. Contact your registrar, which deals with the registry for you.
redemptionPeriod The registrar deleted the domain. The registry holds it for 30 days, out of DNS, and purges it five days after that. Ask your registrar to restore it now. A restore fee usually applies.
pendingRestore A restore from redemption is under way. The registrar has a limited time, often seven days, to send the registry its paperwork. Watch the status. If it falls back to redemptionPeriod, contact your registrar.
pendingDelete Alone, it means the 30 days of redemption are over and the domain will be purged within days. At .com the registry rejects every change now (.com registry agreement, section 3.3.2), so it can’t be restored. If you want the domain, ICANN’s advice is to contact your registrar immediately “to discuss what options are available”.
pendingTransfer A transfer to another registrar has been requested. If you didn’t ask for it, ask your registrar to deny it, right away.
pendingUpdate A change to the domain is waiting to be applied. If you didn’t ask for it, contact your registrar.
pendingRenew A renewal is waiting to be applied. If you didn’t ask for it and don’t want to keep the domain, contact your registrar.
clientRenewProhibited, serverRenewProhibited The domain can’t be renewed. ICANN says this usually means a legal dispute or a domain “subject to deletion.” Contact your registrar, especially if expiry is near.
autoRenewPeriod The registration reached its expiry date and the registry renewed it automatically for the registrar. That doesn’t mean you paid. Check in your registrar account that the domain is renewed. If not, renew it now, or tell the registrar you don’t want it.
inactive No name servers are set, so the domain doesn’t resolve. Normal for a domain you haven’t pointed anywhere yet. Otherwise, set name servers at your registrar.

pendingDelete can also appear together with redemptionPeriod or pendingRestore. Then the other status is the one that counts, and the domain can still be restored.

For the full timeline from expiry to release, see what happens when a domain expires.

Locks worth keeping

Status What it means
clientTransferProhibited Your registrar tells the registry to reject transfers to another registrar. It guards against hijacking. To move the domain, ask your registrar to remove it first.
clientUpdateProhibited Changes to the domain, such as its name servers, are rejected until your registrar removes the lock.
clientDeleteProhibited Requests to delete the domain are rejected.
serverTransferProhibited, serverUpdateProhibited, serverDeleteProhibited The same locks, set by the registry. They can mean a dispute or a domain in redemption, but some registries also offer them as a “Registry Lock” service: an extra layer you ask for through your registrar.

The three client locks together are common on well-kept domains. example.com has exactly those three; google.com adds the three server locks.

Labels that are usually fine

Status What it means
ok The normal state: no pending operations and no locks. It never appears with any other status.
addPeriod The domain was registered in the last few days.
renewPeriod It was renewed recently.
transferPeriod It moved to a new registrar recently. If you didn’t move it, contact your old registrar.
pendingCreate A registration is being processed, as during a new ending’s launch period.

Client or server: who can remove it

The prefix says who set a status and who can lift it. RFC 5731 defines the split:

  • client statuses are set by the sponsoring registrar, either because you asked or because it sets them on every new domain. To remove one, ask your registrar.
  • server statuses are set by the registry, and the registrar can’t change them: “A client MUST NOT alter status values set by the server.” Removing one means your registrar asking the registry, which takes longer.
  • The rest (ok, inactive, the pending and grace period statuses) are managed by the registry as things happen.

The RFC also rules out contradictions: ok is never combined with another status, and a pending action never appears with the lock that would block it, so you won’t see pendingTransfer beside clientTransferProhibited.

How WHOIS and RDAP show them

WHOIS prints the EPP code in camelCase, followed by a link to ICANN’s explanation. This is the .com registry’s WHOIS server for google.com:

whois -h whois.verisign-grs.com google.com | grep 'Domain Status'
   Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
   Domain Status: serverDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverDeleteProhibited
   Domain Status: serverTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverTransferProhibited
   Domain Status: serverUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#serverUpdateProhibited

RDAP, the replacement for WHOIS, returns the same statuses as lowercase words:

curl -s https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/google.com | jq '.status'
[
  "client delete prohibited",
  "client transfer prohibited",
  "client update prohibited",
  "server delete prohibited",
  "server transfer prohibited",
  "server update prohibited"
]

Both captured on October 23, 2026, with macOS’s whois, curl 8.7.1 and jq 1.7.1. RFC 8056 defines the mapping: each EPP code becomes words split at the capitals (clientHold is client hold), except ok, which RDAP calls active. RDAP vs WHOIS covers the rest of the lookup.

Why a domain with a hold stops working

A registry’s name servers answer from its zone: the list of domains and the name servers each one uses. Verisign’s zone files leave out domains “in the following states: serverHold, clientHold, pendingDelete, and redemptionPeriod”, along with domains that have no name servers. A domain left out of the zone doesn’t resolve anywhere, whatever your own DNS settings say, so the website and email on it stop together.

That is why a hold is urgent even when the registration hasn’t expired: nothing on the domain works until the status is lifted.

Sources

All sources were checked on October 23, 2026. The command output comes from our own run on that date.

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