How to check when your domain expires

Two different dates

Domain name

Your address (YourWebsite.com), rented from whoever you bought it from, usually a year at a time. If it lapses, your website and your email stop.

SSL certificate

What gives you the padlock and the "https". Your web host or website builder usually renews it for you every few months. If it lapses, visitors see "Your connection is not private" instead of your site.

Check your domain's expiry date

1. In your account. Log in where you bought the domain (your "registrar": often your web host or website builder) and open its list of domains. Each shows its expiry or renewal date, and whether auto-renew is on. This is the most useful place, because it also shows the card that will pay.
2. With ICANN Lookup. ICANN, which oversees domain names, runs a free lookup at lookup.icann.org. Type your domain and look for the expiration date. It works for .com, .org, .net and most other endings; some endings, mostly country ones, don't publish the date.
3. In your email. For .com, .org, .net and similar endings, the rules say the company you bought from must email you about a month before, about a week before, and again within five days after it runs out. Search your email for your domain name and "expire" or "renew".

Don't know where you bought it? Domain name expired? Get it back and keep it shows how to find out.

Check your SSL certificate's expiry date

• In Chrome or Edge: open your site, click the icon just left of the web address, then Connection is secure, then Certificate is valid. The date is under Validity period, as Expires on.
• In other browsers: click the padlock or the icon beside the address, and look for the certificate's details.
• With Site health: it reads the certificate your site sends and shows the date it runs out, how many days that is, and who issued it.

Certificates run out sooner than they used to

The rules browsers and certificate issuers follow have cut how long a certificate may last:

• Issued since March 15, 2026: 200 days at most.
• From March 15, 2027: 100 days.
• From March 15, 2029: 47 days.

Let's Encrypt, the free certificates many web hosts use, already last 90 days. So a certificate date only tells you something if renewal is automatic. Most website builders and web hosts do it for you; if yours doesn't, ask them to set it up, because nobody can remember to do it by hand every few weeks.

What Site health tells you

Site health shows both dates in one go, from our server, with a warning:

• Padlock certificate: the end date and who issued it; a warning once it's within 14 days.
• Domain name: the date it's paid up to, where the registry publishes it; a warning once it's within 60 days. Where the registry doesn't publish it, we say so instead of guessing.

We read the domain date from the registry's public record. If you renewed today, it can take a day or so to show the new date.

Never miss either date

• Turn on auto-renew for the domain, and check the card on that account hasn't expired.
• Make sure the account's email address is one you still read: renewal reminders go there.
• Ask your web host or builder to confirm the certificate renews by itself.
• Put the domain's date in your calendar, a month early.
• Or let us watch: Site Watch checks every night and emails you when your certificate is within 14 days of running out or your domain within 60.

A renewal notice from a company you've never used is probably a scam: see Spot domain renewal scams.