What are RGP and ERGP

The best way to make sure that your domain name will not go offline due to expiration is to renew it on time. You can find out how to do that in the "Domain Renewal" article. What will happen, however, if you miss the expiration date and your domain name expires?

You can renew most of the top-level domains (TLDs) that we offer at the regular price during the first 30 days after the expiration date. Once that period is over, the domain name enters the so-called Redemption Grace period (RGP). During that period, the domain registrar gives the domain owner the chance to renew the domain name at a much higher price as it is considered that the higher price would cover all the fees for maintaining an expired domain name instead of deleting it right away. The RGP lasts between 30 and 45 days and that is your last chance to keep the domain name. Once that period is over, the domain name enters a 5-day Pending Delete period and will be deleted, so anybody will be able to register it on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Extended Redemption Grace Period (ERGP) lasts for 90 days, compared to the 30-45 days of the regular RGP. Together with the first 30 days after the domain name's expiration date, you have a total of 120 days to renew your domain name. It is at the sole discretion of the registrar which domain name will enter RGP and which one will enter ERGP. Beside the time period, the main difference between RGP and ERGP is that with the Extended Period, it is accepted that the domain owner renounces ownership of the domain name once the 120th day has passed and the registrar takes over that domain name. If that happens, we will not be able to renew the domain name in any way and the registrar will have the right to auction, sell or delete the domain name. The latter is a very rare case, and the auction prices are usually much higher than the service fee that you would have to pay during the Extended Redemption Period, so if you would like to keep your domain name, our suggestion would be to pay that service fee.

We will inform you via a ticket if you try to renew a domain name in RGP. You can reply in that ticket if you would like to pay the service fee or not. Currently, the fee that you would have to pay is $270.00.

If you don't want to pay the service fee, you have several options:

You can choose a different domain extension. If my-best-domain.com is in RGP, we can register my-best-domain.net, for example, as long as it is available for registration.
If the domain name is in RGP and you are not in a hurry, you can wait for your domain name to be deleted and made available for registration again. Make sure to check that on a regular basis because once the domain name is deleted, anybody will be able to register it.
Last, but not least, we can register/transfer any other domain name or refund the money you have paid for the domain name in RGP.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: If your domain name has expired on January 1, 2009 and it is currently in RGP, you will see the expiration date as January 1, 2010 if you make a WHOIS check. The extra year is added automatically by the registrar to give you a chance to renew the domain name instead of deleting it. This does NOT mean that you have a whole year to do this, the 30-45 day period still applies. You can always see the actual expiration date in the Domain Manager section (Site Management > Domain Manager) of your Web Hosting Control Panel.

The domain extensions that have RGP and ERGP periods are: .com, .net, .info, .us., .biz, .org, .cc, .tv. The .eu, .asia, .ws and .mobi extensions have a 30-40 day RGP period and no ERGP.