How to transfer a domain name in the UK

Transferring a domain is routine, and it goes wrong in exactly two ways. Both are avoidable, and neither is the transfer itself.

First, the thing that actually breaks

Copy your DNS records before you start.

This is the mistake. A domain transfer moves who manages the name. It does not move the settings that say where the website and the email should go. Some registrars keep those settings during a transfer. Some replace them with defaults.

If yours does the second, and you have not written them down, your website and your email both stop working at the same moment, and you are reconstructing the settings under pressure.

So, before touching anything, take a screenshot of every DNS record at the current registrar. The ones that matter:

• A records, pointing your domain at the web host
• CNAME records, usually including www
• MX records, which route your email. These are the ones that hurt
• TXT records, including SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which are also email and whose absence causes messages to start landing in spam a week later without any obvious cause

Ten minutes. It turns the worst case from a crisis into a paste job.

For .com, .net, .org and similar

The standard process:

1. Unlock the domain at the current registrar. Look for "transfer lock" or "registrar lock" in the domain settings.

2. Get the authorisation code, also called an EPP code or auth code. The registrar must provide it. It usually appears on screen or arrives by email.

3. Check the contact email is one you can read. The confirmation goes there. If it is a former employee's address, fix that first or the transfer stalls.

4. Start the transfer at the new registrar, paying for it, which normally adds a year to the registration rather than being a pure fee.

5. Approve the confirmation email, quickly. It often expires.

6. Wait. Up to five to seven days. The old registrar can approve it sooner, and some do.

For .uk domains, which is different

Simpler, and worth knowing because the .com instructions confuse people who have a .co.uk.

Nominet runs .uk, and every domain carries a registrar tag identifying who manages it. To move, you change the tag.

1. Ask your current provider to change the IPS tag to the new provider's tag, which the new provider will give you.

2. The new provider picks it up and adds it to your account.

That is it. No authorisation code, no seven-day wait, often done within hours. There is no transfer fee to Nominet either, though providers may charge their own.

The catch is that some resellers make the tag change awkward or slow. They are obliged to do it, so a polite, firm request citing Nominet's rules usually resolves it.

The second mistake

Letting it expire during the move.

A domain close to expiry should be renewed before it is transferred, not during. An expired domain cannot be transferred, goes through a redemption period, and costs considerably more to recover than to renew.

Check the expiry date at the start. If it is within a month, renew first and move afterwards.

After it lands

• Verify the DNS records against your screenshots. Everything present and identical
• Load the website, on a phone on mobile data as well as on your own wifi, since local caching can flatter you
• Send and receive a test email, both directions
• Turn on auto-renew at the new registrar, and check the card on file
• Check the registrant details are your business, with an email address that will outlive any one employee, per who owns your domain

If your current provider will not release it

It happens, usually with a supplier relationship that has gone sour.

They are obliged to release it. Ask in writing, once, without heat. If nothing happens, escalate to Nominet for a .uk domain, or to ICANN's transfer dispute process for a .com. Both exist precisely for this.

If you are in that situation more broadly, and the person holding your domain has simply stopped replying, the wider recovery order is in my web designer has disappeared. Start with the domain, always.