A premium domain transfer is not complicated, but people imagine a bureaucratic nightmare. The actual mechanics are simple. Here’s what happens.
1. You place an order
Fill out the qualification form. We need to know who you are, what you’ll use the domain for, and how you want to pay. Takes about two minutes.
2. We send you an invoice
If you pick bank transfer (the default) and the order is below our manual-review threshold, you get a PDF invoice in your inbox on submit. Higher-ticket orders go through a quick human review first — usually a couple of hours during business hours, much sooner most of the time. Either way, the invoice has our company info and bank details (IBAN, SWIFT). If you pick Escrow.com instead, we open an escrow transaction with you within a few hours.
3. You pay
For a bank transfer from inside the EU, your money usually lands in our Raiffeisen account the same business day via SEPA. From outside the EU, wire transfers typically take 1–3 business days and pass through a correspondent bank or two on the way.
4. We push the domain
The moment your payment clears, the transfer begins. Depending on your registrar of choice, this is either an authcode transfer (we give you a code, you redeem it at Namecheap/GoDaddy/Cloudflare/Gandi/etc.) or a push (we move the domain directly into your account at the current registrar — fastest when you already have an account there). We coordinate with you via email.
5. Confirmation
You receive a transfer-complete email with every code, every confirmation, and a paid copy of the invoice. The domain is yours.
What can slow a transfer down
Five things cause most of the delay when transfers take longer than they should. In rough order of frequency:
- Payment takes longer to clear than the buyer expected. International wires can sit in correspondent-bank limbo for 24–72 hours.
- Registrar 60-day lock after a recent registrant change. If the domain changed hands within the last 60 days, ICANN rules prevent an outbound transfer. We don’t list domains with active locks.
- Authcode rejected by the receiving registrar. Usually a typo or whitespace. Re-pasting fixes it.
- Receiving registrar slow to accept. Some registrars process inbound transfers once per day. Nothing either of us can do.
- Privacy service still on the domain at transfer time. The registrant contact email needs to be visible so the transfer authorization email arrives.
None of these are common. Most transfers settle the same day.