It happens more often than you would think: one morning the website does not load, email bounces and nobody has touched anything. The domain has expired. Someone bought it years ago, with a card that no longer exists, at a registrar nobody remembers, and the renewal notices were going to a mailbox nobody reads any more.
Avoiding it comes down to two questions: when does it expire and who manages it. Both have a public answer, with no passwords, in a few minutes. This guide explains where to look depending on whether the domain is registered in AWS or elsewhere, what is different about .es domains, and what to leave switched on so you never get that scare again.
Before you start: what each thing means
- Registrar
- The company you pay for the domain: AWS (Route 53 Domains), GoDaddy, IONOS, Arsys, Namecheap… It is who renews it and who you complain to if it expires.
- Registry
- The organisation that runs the whole extension: Verisign for .com, Red.es for .es, DNS Belgium for .be. The registrar buys from them on your behalf.
- Registrant (owner)
- The person or company the domain is registered to. It should be your business, not your IT person or your agency.
- WHOIS and RDAP
- The public directory of domains. WHOIS is the old one; RDAP is the current one. They show the registrar, the dates and the name servers. The owner's details are usually hidden for privacy, but the registrar and the expiry date are not.
- Automatic renewal
- Having the registrar charge you and renew on its own before the date. It is the safety net: it only fails if the payment fails.
- Grace and redemption periods
- After expiry, many extensions give you a few days or weeks to renew at the normal price; after that the domain goes into "redemption", where recovering it costs considerably more, and in the end it becomes available to anyone. Each registry sets its own rules and deadlines.
- Name servers (NS)
- Who the internet asks about your domain. They can be in Route 53 even if the domain was bought somewhere else: they are two different things.
- Route 53 Domains and Route 53 hosted zone
- In AWS, Route 53 Domains is the registrar (purchase and renewal); a Route 53 hosted zone is just the DNS. You can have the zone in AWS and the domain bought elsewhere, or the other way round.
Step by step
If you bought it in AWS: Route 53 → Registered domains
Go to the AWS console, Route 53 service, Registered domains menu. You will see the list with the expiration date of each one and the Auto renew column. If the domain is not there, you did not buy it in that AWS account: it may be in another account or, most commonly, at another registrar. Having the DNS zone in Route 53 does not mean the domain was bought in AWS.
If it is not in AWS: ask the public directory (RDAP)
Open lookup.icann.org, ICANN's official lookup, and type the domain. In the answer look for Registrar and Registry Expiration Date. No account or key is needed. It works for .com, .net, .org, .info, .cloud, .pro and almost all the new extensions. If you prefer the command line:
whois midominio.comon Linux or Mac gives the same in plain text..es domains are different
The
.esregistry (Red.es) does not publish its data through RDAP, so lookup.icann.org will not find it. Look it up at dominios.es: its search tells you whether it is registered, since when and which registrar agent handles it. For the exact expiry date and the owner, use the registrar's own panel.Find out which account and which email it was bought with
Once you know the registrar, search the company email for messages from that company ("renewal", "expiration", the domain name). If nothing turns up, it is usually because the notices go to the personal mailbox of whoever bought it. Ask that registrar to recover access using the domain and the company name: they all have a procedure for it, and it is better to do it now than with the domain already expired.
Turn on automatic renewal
In AWS: Route 53, Registered domains, the domain, Enable auto renew. At another registrar it is usually called "auto-renew" or "automatic renewal" in their panel. Check the associated card as well: automatic renewal with an expired card is exactly the same as not having it, and the failed-payment notice will go to the same old mailbox.
Point the contact email at a mailbox someone reads
The three domain contacts (registrant, administrative, technical) should point to a company mailbox, not to a person. An alias like
dominios@tuempresa.comthat reaches two people solves the problem of the employee who left. And put the expiry date in the team calendar, two months ahead: automatic renewal is the net, the calendar is the seat belt.
What can go wrong
The domain expired yesterday
Log in to the registrar today and renew: during the grace period it is done at the normal price and everything is back within hours. If it no longer lets you renew, ask about redemption (restore): it costs more, but the domain is still yours. If that is not possible either, the domain may become available and someone else can buy it: at that point all that is left is negotiating or changing the name.
WHOIS does not show the owner
That is normal since the GDPR: personal data is hidden. The registrar and the dates are still public, which is what you need for this guide. If you need to prove the domain is yours (for example to recover access), the registrar will ask for company documentation.
I do not know whether the website uses this domain or a similar one
Check the name servers with dig NS midominio.com (or on lookup.icann.org, Nameservers section). If they are Route 53 ones (ns-123.awsdns-45.com…), the DNS is in AWS even if the domain was bought elsewhere; if they belong to the registrar, everything is there. That tells you where to look for each thing.
The agency manages it and will not give me the details
The registrant of the domain must be your business. If it is in the agency's name, ask for a change of registrant (registrars have a procedure for it) or, at the very least, for access to the panel. A domain in a third party's name is a risk not worth taking, however good the relationship is.
In Simplio
In Simplio, the Domains screen shows every domain across all your AWS accounts as cards or as a list, with three facts you would normally have to go and look for: where it is registered (AWS, or outside AWS with the registrar's name, which Simplio looks up through RDAP), whether automatic renewal is on or off, and when it expires. The ones that do not renew on their own appear in red. For domains registered in AWS, automatic renewal is turned on or off from the card menu, and turning it off asks for the two-factor code because it can let the domain expire. .es domains registered outside AWS appear as "outside AWS" with no further details, because their registry does not publish them.
The same task, in AWS and in Simplio
| In the AWS console | In Simplio | |
|---|---|---|
| Knowing when 40 domains expire | Log in to each registrar, or look them up one by one on lookup.icann.org | The Domains list, with the Expires column |
| Knowing which ones do not renew on their own | Check the box in each panel | Auto-renew column in green or red, sortable |
| Knowing who manages each one | WHOIS by hand, domain by domain | Registration column: AWS, or outside AWS with the registrar's name |
| Turning on automatic renewal in AWS | Route 53 Domains, domain, enable | Option in the card menu; turning it off asks for two-factor |