Who is my domain registrar?

1. What a registrar is

You don't buy a domain name for good. You rent it, usually by the year. ICANN, the group that oversees domain names, says names are registered with one of more than two thousand accredited registrars or their resellers, and the person or business that holds the rights to the name is the registrant. That's you, or whoever signed up for it.

Registrar

The company that rents you the name. It holds your account, takes the yearly payment and sends renewal notices.

Reseller

A company (often a web host or designer) that sells domains through a registrar. ICANN says resellers aren't accredited by ICANN themselves. Your account may be with the reseller.

Web host

A different job: it holds your site's files. See who hosts my website?

If it lapses, your website and email stop together. See Keep your domain name renewed.

2. Look in your own records

This is often quickest, because the registrar's emails and bills name it.

1. Search your email for your domain name, plus renew, invoice, expire or domain.
2. Look for a yearly charge on a card or bank statement.
3. Ask whoever set up the website. A web designer or an old employee may have bought it in their own name.

ICANN says your registrar must send at least two renewal reminders before the name expires, to the registrant email address on file. So an old reminder in an inbox (maybe one nobody reads any more) is a good clue.

3. Look it up at ICANN

ICANN's free lookup reads the public record for a domain. It needs no login.

1. Go to lookup.icann.org.
2. Type your domain (YourWebsite.com) and search.
3. Find the Registrar name in the results, and the reseller if one is listed. The registration dates, including the expiry date, are in the results too.

You can also use Who hosts this website?, which shows the registrar and the renewal date with the other companies behind a site.

4. When the lookup hides things

• Redacted. ICANN's policy lets some details be hidden, and a hidden value is replaced with the word "REDACTED". You may not see the owner's name or contact details. Your account with the registrar has all of it.
• A reseller is listed. Then your account is probably with the reseller, not the registrar named. Log in at the reseller.
• A country ending (.uk, .de, .au and so on). ICANN says country-code names are generally registered through the country's own operator. The lookup may not show them the same way. IANA's list of endings names who runs each one.

5. Once you know who it is

• Find out whose account it's in. Ask them to add you, or move it to your own email address, and keep that address current. Changes to the contact details on the record go through the registrar or its reseller, not through the lookup.
• Check the renewal date and turn on auto-renew, with a card that won't expire.
• If it has already expired, see Domain expired: how to get it back.

Treat a letter or email from a company you've never heard of, asking you to renew or "transfer" your domain, as a likely scam. Log in to your registrar yourself. More in spot scam emails.

6. Still can't find it?

• The lookup shows a company you don't recognize. It may be a reseller or a company that bought another one. Search your email for its name.
• The site was built for you. Your web person may own the domain. Ask in writing who the registrant is, and ask to be made the owner.
• Nobody knows and the name is about to lapse. Contact the registrar the lookup names, and say you're trying to prove you own the domain. They will ask for proof.

PageKiwi's checks sometimes miss a detail or get one wrong. If it looks wrong, tell us.