Do if your domain at Freenom/OpenTLD expires — What to

Your domain ought to be safe even if you can’t renew it since ICANN terminated the registrar.

A Reglike reader contacted me the prior week with a big concern: they couldn’t renew their domain at Freenom (OpenTLD B.V.).

ICANN has de-accredited the registrar and is finding a fresh registrar to transfer the domains to.

Not having access to your domains during a transition like this can be troublesome. It’s even more worrisome if your domain expires and needs to be renewed.

I reached out to ICANN to better understand what happens in this circumstance. Their support team stated:

As part of the De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure (DARTP), ICANN takes steps to help ensure as smooth a transition as possible. These steps include working with registries to ensure domain names are not deleted due to the actions or inaction of a de-accredited registrar (counting not providing registrants the ability to renew registrations).

This usually involves the registry auto-renewing the domain for a grace period.

ICANN stated it’s essential that, once ICANN moves the domains to a fresh registrar, domain owners quickly work with that registrar to pay for any domain renewals.