Buy or transfer a domain

You can register a domain from the dashboard and pay for it from your wallet. It can join a project in the same step, with our nameservers and its SSL certificate set up by themselves. You can also transfer a domain in from another registrar. Every domain renews from your wallet, starting 30 days before it ends.

Register a new domain

1. Open your account's Domains tab, or choose Buy one in a project's Domains tab.

2. Type a name like duka, or a whole domain like duka.co.tz, and choose Search.

3. Each ending shows whether it's available, its price for the first year and its renewal price, side by side.

4. Choose Register. Pick how long, from 1 to 10 years.

5. Fill in Who owns it. The details must be real: the registry may email the owner to check them.

6. Tick Hide the owner's details from public lookups if you want, where the ending allows it. Some endings, like many countries' own, always show the owner.

7. Under Connect it to a project, pick a project, or Not now.

8. Check the total and your balance after paying, then choose Pay and register.

It's paid before we ask the registry. If the registry refuses, the money goes back to your wallet at once. If your balance is short, the page says by how much, with a Top up button.

Example: Asha buys duka.com

Asha already has duka.co.tz. She searches for duka, sees duka.com available with its first year and renewal prices, registers it for 2 years, and picks her project duka. It joins duka's domains with our nameservers, and she sets it to redirect to duka.co.tz under Domains. Its SSL certificate follows in a few minutes.

Renewals

• A domain renews itself from your wallet, starting 30 days before it ends, tried once a day until it's paid. It never renews twice for the same year.

• What the next 30 days' renewals need shows on your wallet as Reserved for renewals.

• If your balance doesn't cover a renewal, we tell you every day, under the bell and by email, until it does.

• To stop a domain renewing by itself, open its settings and switch off Renew by itself. You can still Renew now by hand.

A domain past its end is marked Expired and can't be renewed here. Ask us for help to get it back while its registry still allows it.

Transfer a domain in

1. At your current registrar, unlock the domain and get its transfer code (also called an auth code or EPP code).

2. In your account's Domains tab, choose Transfer a domain in.

3. Type the domain, the transfer code and the owner's details, then pay from your wallet.

A transfer adds a year to the domain, and it keeps the time it had left. The old registrar has up to 5 days to let it go; many do it sooner. We tell you under the bell and by email when it's here.

Domain settings

Open a domain in your account's Domains tab to change:

• Renewal: renew by itself, or renew now for 1 to 10 years.

• Transfer lock: while it's locked, nobody can move it to another registrar.

• Privacy: hide the owner's details, where the registry allows it.

• Nameservers: ours (the project's DNS tab edits its records), or 2 to 13 of your own.

• Owner's details: what the registry holds.

• Move to another registrar: shows the transfer code, and unlocks the domain.

Unlocking, changing nameservers or the owner's details, and showing the transfer code need your passkey or your login's second step from the last 15 minutes, and only the account's owners can do them. Everyone in the account is told by email. That way a stolen password alone can't take your domain. See Login security.