Free Domain Age Checker

It asks the registry directly. Every domain extension, such as .com, .org or .uk, is run by one registry, and most registries publish their records through RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol. IANA keeps a public list of which RDAP service answers for each extension. The checker reads that list, sends one request to the right registry, and reads the registration event in the answer.

1. You enter a domain or a full address. A subdomain or a page path is dropped, so www.example.co.uk/shop is checked as example.co.uk, the name the registry actually registers.
2. The checker looks up the extension in IANA's list. That list is read at most once a day and kept, so a check does not ask IANA each time.
3. It asks that registry's RDAP service for the domain's record and reads the registration, expiration and last-changed events, the registrar and the status codes.
4. It counts the age from the registration date to the moment of the check, in UTC: whole years, then whole days since the last anniversary.

Nothing on this page is estimated. If the registry answers, you see what it said. If it does not, the result says why, and no age is shown.

No, it is the date of the current registration. If a domain expired, was deleted and was later registered again by someone else, the registry's record starts over, and the checker shows the newer date. A domain that has been renewed every year without a break keeps its original date, because renewing extends the same registration.

So a young date on a name you have seen for years usually means the name lapsed at some point. A transfer from one registrar to another does not reset the date; the registration stays the same and only its sponsor changes. If you are buying an older domain for its history, the registration date tells you when its current run began, not what the site on it did before.

• Registered: when the current registration was created, from the registry's registration event.
• Expires: the date the registration runs to unless it is renewed. Some registries, such as SIDN for .nl, do not publish one.
• Last changed: when the registry's record was last updated, for example by a renewal, a nameserver change or a transfer.
• Registrar: the company the domain was registered through, from the record's registrar entry.
• Status codes: locks and states the registry has set, such as client transfer prohibited, which stops the domain being moved to another registrar without the owner unlocking it first.

The status codes are shown exactly as the registry wrote them. For generic extensions they follow the EPP status codes ICANN publishes; country-code registries may use their own words, such as locked.

There are a few honest reasons, and the result names the one that applies. Registries decide what their records include, and privacy rules lead some to hide data that others publish.

• No RDAP service listed: some country-code registries do not list an RDAP service with IANA (when we last checked its list, on Oct 30, 2026, .de and .io were among them). We do not fall back to scraping WHOIS websites, so for those extensions there is no answer here.
• Dates not published: the registry answered but its record has no registration date. auDA, which runs .au, is one registry whose records leave it out. Any expiry or change date it does publish is still shown.
• No record: the registry's RDAP service says it has no record of the name. That usually means it is not registered, but it is the registry's answer rather than a promise the name is free, so check with a registrar before you rely on it.
• Registry busy or not answering: registries limit how often they are asked, and so do we, at most 30 checks a minute for each registry across all visitors. When a registry is busy or does not answer, nothing was checked, we try to give the check back to your daily free checks, and you can try again in a minute.

RDAP was created to replace WHOIS. Both answer the question of who registered a domain and when, but WHOIS returns free text in a different layout for each registry, while RDAP returns structured data with named events and roles, so the registration date is read rather than guessed from a line of text.

ICANN requires every registry and registrar for generic extensions to run RDAP, and since January 28, 2025 they are no longer required to run WHOIS, apart from a few exceptions. Many country-code registries run RDAP too, which is why the checker covers .uk, .nl, .fr, .ca and many more.

Contact details are a separate matter. Most registries now hide the names, addresses and email addresses of people who registered domains, and this checker does not show contact details at all. It reads dates, the registrar and status codes only.

Not on its own. Domain age is not among the ranking systems Google documents, and its search team has said publicly that age alone does not help a site rank. What an older site often has is what took time to build: pages people link to, a record of useful content, and a name people search for. A new domain with good pages can rank, and an old one with thin pages does not rank because of its age.

Age is still useful to know. It helps you judge a site before you link to it or buy from it, spot a lookalike domain registered last week, check when a domain you own expires so it does not lapse, and see whether a domain you plan to buy has been held without a break.

What this page says about RDAP, IANA's list of registry services and registration events comes from these sources, checked on the date shown:

• ICANN: Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)

  Source · Checked Oct 30, 2026

• IANA: RDAP bootstrap file for domain names

  Source · Checked Oct 30, 2026

• RFC 9083: JSON responses for RDAP (events and entities)

  Source · Checked Oct 30, 2026

• RFC 9224: Finding the authoritative RDAP service

  Source · Checked Oct 30, 2026