---
title: "Domain Expiry — monitoring glossary"
description: "Domain expiry is the date a domain registration lapses. After expiry, the domain enters a grace period; after that, it can be re-registered by anyone — and…"
canonical: "https://lemwatch.com/glossary/domain-expiry"
source: "https://lemwatch.com"
---

# Domain Expiry

> Domain expiry is the date a domain registration lapses. After expiry, the domain enters a grace period; after that, it can be re-registered by anyone — and recovery is usually impossible.

## Definition

 Most TLDs follow a similar lifecycle: 30-day auto-renew grace period, then 30-day redemption period (recovery is possible but expensive), then 5-day pending-delete window, then the domain returns to public availability.

 Losing a domain to expiry is catastrophic — email stops working, the website goes dark, SaaS integrations break, and the domain may be picked up by squatters or competitors immediately.

## Why it matters

 Auto-renew failures (expired credit card, billing email going to spam) are the most common cause of domain loss. Independent monitoring with multi-week lead-time alerts catches this before the renewal window closes.

 See it in the product: [Domain monitoring](https://lemwatch.com/features).


## Related

- [Monitoring glossary](https://lemwatch.com/glossary)
- [DNS](https://lemwatch.com/glossary/dns)
- [RDAP](https://lemwatch.com/glossary/rdap)
- [Broken Link](https://lemwatch.com/glossary/broken-link)
- [All monitoring checks](https://lemwatch.com/features)
- [Downtime](https://lemwatch.com/glossary/downtime)