What Is Registrar? Domain Glossary

Why it matters

Your registrar is where your domain lives day to day. GoDaddy, Namecheap and Cloudflare are examples. An ICANN-accredited registrar has signed a contract with ICANN. When you sell a domain, the sale ends with a move from your registrar to the buyer's account or registrar. A common mistake is losing access to the registrar account, such as an old email address. Without that access you cannot prove control or complete a sale.

Source: icann.org

Where we use this term

Related terms

Registrant: A registrant is the person or organization listed as the holder of a domain name registration. The registrant holds the right to use the name and is responsible for renewals and accurate contact details.
Reseller: A company that sells domain registrations through an ICANN-accredited registrar's system, often under its own brand. The reseller handles the customer, and the registrar holds the contract with the registry.
Registry: A registry is the authoritative master database of every domain name registered in one top-level domain. The company that runs it is the registry operator. The Domain Name System consults it to find the name servers for each name.
Inter-registrar transfer: An inter-registrar transfer moves a domain from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another. The new registrar asks for an authorization code, and the registry completes the move once both sides approve.
ICANN: ICANN is the nonprofit that coordinates the Internet's unique identifiers, including domain names. It signs contracts with registries, accredits registrars and sets consensus policies, such as the transfer and registration data rules.

All 205 terms

Why it matters

Where we use this term

Buying or selling a domain?