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How .uk and .co.uk domain expiry works
.uk domains (including .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk) are run by Nominet, and their expiry lifecycle is quite different from .com — slower, simpler, and in some ways kinder to forgetful owners.
The Nominet timeline
| Days after expiry | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 0 | Domain expires. It keeps working for now. |
| Days 0–30 | Grace period. Owner can renew at the normal price. The domain usually continues to resolve. |
| Day 30 | Domain is suspended — website and email stop working. WHOIS shows the suspension. |
| Days 30–90 | Still recoverable by the owner (registrars may charge a late-renewal/restore fee, typically modest compared to gTLD redemption fees). |
| ~Day 92 | Nominet deletes the domain and it becomes publicly available again. |
So a .co.uk name takes roughly three months from expiry to drop — noticeably longer than the ~65–80 days typical for .com.
Helpful .uk quirks
- No redemption ransom. There's no $100+ registry redemption fee like gTLDs; recovering a suspended .uk domain is usually cheap or free apart from the renewal itself.
- Predictable drop lists. Nominet publishes when domains will drop, and the drop happens in the early morning (UK time). Several UK-specific drop-catchers compete for good names.
- No registrar expiry auctions. Unlike GoDaddy and friends with .com, .uk registrars don't generally auction your expired name — it either comes back to you or it drops.
Catching a dropping .uk domain
The same logic as gTLD backorders applies, with UK-specialist catchers in the mix. For uncontested names, registering manually on drop morning often works. For anything good, use a catching service.
💡 Our checker recognises .uk domains and uses the 92-day Nominet timeline automatically when estimating the drop date — and you can set email reminders against it.
Want to know when a specific domain expires — and when it actually drops?
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