How to find which registrar a client's domain is with (and when it expires)
By the RenewRoster team · · 5 min read
A new client signs with your agency. You get the WordPress login, maybe hosting access, and a promise that "the domain's all sorted." Nobody knows where it's registered, whose card pays for it, or when it renews.
That gap is how agencies end up taking the 9 AM call when a client's site and email go dark. The good news: you can find the registrar and the expiry date for almost any domain in a couple of minutes, without logging into anything.
Step 1: Look the domain up in RDAP
RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol) is the modern, structured replacement for WHOIS. Registries for generic TLDs such as .com, .net and .org publish it, and most registrars do too.
The quickest way in is the public redirector at rdap.org:
https://rdap.org/domain/clientsite.com
It forwards you to the right registry. In the JSON response, look for:
eventswitheventAction: "expiration": the expiry date.entitieswith the roleregistrar: the registrar's name and IANA ID.status: values likeclient transfer prohibited(normal lock) orredemption period(trouble).
If the expiry date is weeks away, good. If it's days away, or already passed, skip to Step 4.
Step 2: Fall back to WHOIS for TLDs without RDAP
Some country-code TLDs don't offer RDAP yet. For those, the classic command still works:
whois clientsite.io
Look for Registrar:, Registry Expiry Date: or Expiry date:. The field names vary by registry, which is exactly why tracking a mixed list of TLDs by hand gets messy.
Step 3: Work out who actually controls the account
Knowing the registrar is half the job. The other half is whose account the domain sits in:
- Ask the client to search their inbox for the registrar's name. Renewal notices and invoices are the giveaway.
- Check the nameservers. If they point at Cloudflare, the domain might be registered there too, or only use its DNS. RDAP's registrar field settles it.
- Look for a reseller. Plenty of small hosts resell domains, so the registrar on record may be a wholesale platform rather than the company the client pays.
Write down three things for every domain: registrar, account owner, and who pays. That's the minimum you need to stop a renewal falling through the cracks. Our domain and SSL renewal checklist has a column for each.
Step 4: If it's about to expire (or already has)
- Before expiry: have the account owner log in, renew, and switch on auto-renew with a card that won't expire before the next renewal.
- Just expired: most generic TLDs give a grace period where the owner can still renew at the normal price, but the site and email may already be down. Act today.
- In redemption: the domain can usually still be recovered, but only by the account owner and at a noticeably higher fee. After that it's released, and drop-catch services watch for exactly that moment.
We wrote a longer walkthrough here: what happens when a client's domain expires, and a step-by-step guide on what to do when a domain expires.
Doing this for a list of client domains at once
One lookup is easy. Fifty is an afternoon of copy-pasting JSON. Our free bulk domain and SSL checker checks up to 10 domains at a time with no signup, and shows each domain's registrar, domain expiry and SSL certificate expiry.
If you'd rather never do it again, RenewRoster keeps the whole list for you. Import a CSV of client domains (or pull them straight from your registrar) and it reads expiry dates and registrars from RDAP, with a WHOIS fallback, checks the SSL certificate each site actually serves, and alerts your team at 60, 30, 14 and 3 days. Paid plans can also remind the client directly, under your agency's name. It's free for up to 5 domains or certificates.
FAQ
Is RDAP replacing WHOIS?
For generic TLDs, yes. ICANN made RDAP the definitive source for gTLD registration data, and many WHOIS servers for those TLDs have been switched off. Some country-code TLDs still use WHOIS only.
Why is the owner's name hidden?
Most registrars redact personal contact details for privacy. The registrar name and the dates are still public, and those are what you need to track renewals.
Does the registrar's renewal email count as a reminder?
Only if it reaches someone who acts on it. Those emails go to the account holder's address, which is often an ex-employee or a forgotten inbox. See why registrar renewal emails get missed.
Stop looking up expiry dates by hand
RenewRoster tracks every client's domain and SSL expiry dates, sends reminders at 60, 30, 14 and 3 days (under your agency's brand if you like) and gives you a monthly renewals report. Free for 5 domains, no card needed.
Sources
- ICANN: Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)
- rdap.org: public RDAP redirector
- ICANN: Expired Registration Recovery Policy (ERRP)
- ICANN: EPP status codes