A domain is rented, not owned. Miss the renewal and it does not simply stop working. It moves through a sequence of stages, each more expensive and less recoverable than the last, and at the end anyone in the world may register it.
Understanding that sequence is the whole point of this page, because it explains why domain renewal deserves more attention than hosting renewal.
What happens after the expiry date
Expiry. The domain stops resolving. The website goes down and, more quietly, so does email. You can still renew at the ordinary price.
Grace period. Typically around 30 days, though it varies by extension. Still renewable at the normal price, and this is where most people notice.
Redemption. Roughly another 30 days. The domain can still be recovered, but a redemption fee applies, often substantially more than the renewal, sometimes ten times it. This is a registry charge, not a markup by your registrar.
Pending delete. About five days. Nothing can be done; the domain is queued for release.
Released. Anyone may register it. Valuable names are picked up within seconds by services that watch for exactly this.
Turn auto-renewal on and leave it on
For a domain this is not a convenience setting. Losing hosting costs a restore from backup; losing a domain can cost the business name, every email address on it, and every inbound link ever built.
Enable it in the client area under your domain's settings. Then check two things that make it actually work.
The card's expiry date. An expired card is the most common cause of a failed renewal, and it fails quietly: the charge simply does not go through.
Where notices go. Renewal reminders go to your account email. If that is an address on the domain being renewed, the domain expiring takes the warning with it. Use something external.
Domains and hosting expire separately
They are different products on different cycles even when bought together, and one expiring does not affect the other's date.
So a working website can disappear because the domain lapsed while the hosting is paid up for another year. Check both dates instead of assuming one covers the other. Understanding billing cycles sets out the hosting side.
Renewing manually
In the client area, open your domain list and renew. You can usually add several years at once, up to the maximum the registry allows, often ten.
Multi-year renewal is worth considering for a domain that matters. It removes the annual failure point entirely, and registry prices tend to rise rather than fall.
Renewing after expiry
Act immediately. Every day moves the domain closer to a stage where recovery is more expensive or impossible.
In the grace period, renew normally through the client area. In redemption, open a ticket. The process is manual and the registry fee applies. Once it reaches pending delete, nothing can be done but wait and hope to register it when it drops, which for a desirable name means competing with services built for exactly that.
Renewal prices are not registration prices
Introductory registration offers are common; renewals are at standard rates. That is normal across the industry and stated at purchase, but it surprises people at the twelve-month mark.
Some extensions renew considerably higher than they register. Worth knowing before choosing an unusual one for a business you intend to keep. Understanding domain extensions picks it up from there.
Before a domain expires deliberately
If you are letting one go on purpose, two things are worth doing.
Redirect it while it is still yours if the content moved somewhere else, so inbound links keep working for as long as possible.
And remember that email on the domain stops with it. Any account elsewhere using an address on that domain for password resets becomes unrecoverable, which is a much bigger problem than the website going down, and it is discovered months later.
With more than a few domains the renewal itself stops being the problem and the record-keeping starts being it. How to Manage a Portfolio of Domains and Renewals picks it up from there.
Confirm the renewal actually reached the registry
A renewal paid for and not applied is indistinguishable from one that worked, until the domain stops resolving.
whois example.com | grep -iE 'expir|updated|status' dig example.com SOA +short
Read the expiry date in the public record rather than the one in the account. The record is what the registry holds, and it is what determines whether the domain continues.
An account showing a renewal and a record showing the old date means the payment succeeded and the renewal did not. That gap is recoverable while it is noticed and not afterwards.
Renew earlier than you need to
There is no benefit to renewing at the last moment and several risks in doing so.
A payment that fails needs time to retry. A card that requires confirmation needs somebody present. A domain in a dispute or a verification hold cannot be renewed at all until that clears.
Renewing a month early adds the year to the existing date rather than replacing it, so nothing is lost. The only thing given up is the option to change registrar during that month, which is rarely what anybody was planning.
Know what the domain is worth to you
The renewal decision is usually automatic and the one case worth thinking about is a domain you are considering dropping.
awk '{print $11}' ~/logs/example.com 2>/dev/null | grep -c 'example.com'
dig example.com MX +short
A domain that still receives mail, still has links pointing at it, or still appears in printed material is not free to release, whatever the traffic figures say.
Once released it can be registered by anybody, and they receive the mail and the links along with it. That is the calculation rather than the renewal fee, and it is why a domain that once hosted anything should be kept rather than dropped. What happens when a domain expires covers the timeline.