The years: renewal and expiry
Guide 5 of 7
What happens when a .au licence runs out?
A licence runs for one to five years. Renewal opens 90 days before the end, and after the expiry date there are 30 days to renew before the name can go to anyone.
General information from auDA’s published rules, not legal advice. Published by Dotto, which runs a marketplace for .au names.
The licence period
The licence period is one, two, three, four or five years, chosen when the licence is registered and nominated again at each renewal, along with the fee (Rules 1.4, 2.14.1).
After the licence agreement is entered into there is a Cooling Off Period of three calendar days, in which the registrant may cancel by written notice to the registrar (Rules 1.4, 2.15.4).
Within those three days, a registrar may also cancel the licence where the required fee has not been paid, the person is not eligible for the licence, or inaccurate, incomplete or fraudulent details have been provided (Rules 2.15.5).
Cancel later and the money does not come back: outside the cooling off period, neither the registrant nor the registrar is entitled to a refund of the wholesale component of the licence fee for the rest of the period (Rules 2.15.2).
| Moment | What the Rules say |
|---|---|
| Renewal opens | 90 calendar days before the expiry date, when the registrant applies to the registrar; the registrant must continue to be eligible, agree to the licence terms, nominate the new licence period and pay the required fee (Rules 2.14.1). |
| Expiry | The term of the new licence still begins on the expiry date of the old licence (Rules 2.14.3). |
| The grace period ends | An expired licence may be renewed within 30 calendar days of the expiry date, on the same conditions, and the new term still begins on the old expiry date (Rules 2.14.4, 2.14.6). |
| Open to anyone | If the licence is not renewed before the 30-day period runs out, the name becomes available to the public on a First Come, First Served basis (Rules 2.14.5). |
A late renewal, worked
The Rules’ own example, paraphrased: a licence due to expire on 30 June 2018, renewed on 12 July 2018 for a five-year term, gets a new expiry date of 30 June 2023. The new term begins on the old expiry date, not the renewal date, so renewing 12 days late restores the name without moving the anniversary (the note to Rules 2.14.6).
One more door exists for a cancelled licence: where a registrant cancels a licence, the registrant may ask a registrar to restore it within two calendar days from the date the registry operator cancelled it; a licence is deemed cancelled when it appears on the Deleted Domain List the registry operator maintains, and the registrant must pay the registrar the required Restoration Fee (Rules 2.15.7 to 2.15.9).
Buying a name that has dropped
Where a name drops and someone registers it fresh, one use of it is what Google calls expired domain abuse: buying an expired domain and repurposing it mainly to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little or no value to users (Google Search Central’s spam policies).
auDA’s renew page describes the practical side. During the 30-day grace period the licence can be renewed through the existing provider or a new one. At the end of the 30 days the name is removed from the registry. If the grace period has passed, the way back is to apply to register the licence again, and if the name is available it can be re-registered through a preferred provider. Securing a name after it has expired is not guaranteed; the page suggests keeping registration information up to date and diarising the expiry date (auDA’s renew page).
If someone else has registered the name you previously held, the page says you can attempt to negotiate it back, by contacting them through the registrant contact information in the WHOIS tool, or with the assistance of a domain broker (auDA’s renew page).
The reminder that starts all of this comes from the provider, not the registry: auDA’s renew page says the .au registrar or reseller will send a reminder email as the end of the licence period approaches, and asks holders to keep contact details up to date so those reminders are not missed. Guide 6 takes that thread up.