.com Domains: The Internet's Default Address
.com entered the DNS root in 1985 as one of the first generic top-level domains. The name is short for "commercial"; RFC 1591 defined it in 1994 as the domain for commercial entities. The first registration, symbolics.com, dates from 15 March 1985. VeriSign Global Registry Services operates the extension and appears as the sponsoring organisation in the IANA root zone record.
No identity, paperwork, nationality or sector is required, and unlike .biz the root zone record carries no restricted marker. The old split with its siblings started here: .net was for network operators' machines, .org for organisations. Those limits are no longer enforced. To see your brand name across several extensions at once, run a bulk domain name search.
.COM Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator VeriSign Global Registry Services
- Entered the root zone 1985
- First registration symbolics.com — 15 March 1985
- Restrictions None; open to registrants worldwide
- Domains registered 166.6 million (30 June 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .com domain
- Character Length 2 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.com Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
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New Registration
$6.99 /year -
Transfer
$10.99 /year -
Renewal
$17.99 /year -
Restore
$99.90 -
Late Renewal
$3.50
Included With Every .com Domain
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Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.com Domain Lifecycle
What happens day by day after it expires
Day 0 is the domain's expiry dateIn short: your .com domain is put on Client Hold on its expiry date, so the site and e-mail stop that same day. You can still renew during the first 20 days, but from this point a late renewal fee is added on top of the renewal price. On day 20 the registration is deleted and until day 50 only a paid restore brings it back. Nothing at all can be done in the 5 days that follow, and on day 55 the name is open to anyone. There is exactly one way never to enter this chain: keep auto-renewal on.
Domain Is Available (Available)
A .com address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete, the domain is registered to you for the term you selected. You can renew at any point before it expires to keep it active, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Renewal Window (Client Hold)
On its expiry date your .com domain is put on Client Hold: the site and e-mail go down that day, but the registration is still yours. A single renewal within these first 20 days brings everything back exactly as it was — nothing is lost. The only difference is that a $3.50 late renewal fee is now added to the renewal price; renewing before the expiry date avoids that fee entirely.
Redemption Period (Redemption / RGP)
On day 20 the registration is deleted and the 30-day redemption period that ICANN requires of every gTLD registry begins. The name is not released to anyone during this time; only you can take it back, by paying the restore fee, until day 50. That fee is far higher than a renewal — renewing on time is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete (Pending Delete)
Once the redemption window closes too, the domain enters its final 5 days and there is no way back. Neither renewal nor restore works here; nobody — your registrar included — can return the name to you. The registry uses this window as the last hold before the name goes back into the pool.
Open to Anyone Again (Released)
On day 55 the name .com returns to the pool and anyone can register it. Sought-after names are often gone within seconds, and there is no guaranteed way to get one back. Yet staying out of this timeline is entirely in your hands: leave auto-renewal on and the expiry date will never catch you off guard.
The timeline above is the schedule Atak Domain applies and publishes. The ICANN chart you will find elsewhere shows a renewal window of up to 45 days after expiry; ICANN's policy on expired registrations (section 2.2.1) lets registrars delete an expired domain at any time, provided they disclose their policy in advance. We apply that window as 20 days and publish it here in plain sight. Full text of the policy: ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy
.com Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.com Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .com domain
- Character Length 2 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.com Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
Frequently Asked Questions About .com Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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No, a .com registration requires no paperwork at all. There is no identity, nationality or line-of-business condition, and the IANA root zone record does not flag the extension as restricted. All you supply is a valid contact address and an email address you actually read. That email matters: renewal notices and transfer approvals go there, and an address nobody checks is how domains get lost at expiry.
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Technically none — VeriSign Global Registry Services runs both. The difference is history and scale. RFC 1591 defined .com for companies and .net for network operators' machines. As of 30 June 2026 the .com base stood at 166.6 million against 12.5 million for .net. The working rule: visitors type .com by reflex, so if you make .net your main address, hold the .com too.
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Two steps: have the transfer lock released and collect the EPP code. You request both from your current registrar; we handle the rest. Before starting, check the domain has not expired — an expired name needs renewing first. Confirm who currently holds it with whois search, then begin from the domain transfer page.
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Forty unbroken years, zero restrictions and a settled reflex. People who hear a brand name type .com first, and the numbers follow that habit: 166.6 million .com registrations as of 30 June 2026, against 401.6 million across every extension combined. The practical consequence is worth planning for — choose an address outside .com and expect to lose a slice of direct traffic to the .com equivalent.
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It is not deleted immediately; several stages come first. The website and email stop, but during the renewal window an ordinary renewal brings the name back. Miss that window and the domain enters redemption, where recovery becomes a separate process. In the final stage the registration is deleted and the name returns to general availability. The registry's current lifecycle rules set each stage's length. Auto-renew is the only reliable safeguard.
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With privacy on, a lookup shows the privacy provider's details instead of yours. Your name, address and phone number leave the public record, while ownership and administrative control stay entirely with you. The registry and registrar continue to hold your real details — only the outward-facing record is masked. Check what is currently visible for any name from the whois search page.
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The deciding question is how many countries your audience sits in. Trading in one country, that country's extension signals local presence. Selling across several markets, .com stays neutral because it carries no national association. The most common answer is both: one as the main address, the other as a redirect. See which combinations are free in one pass with a bulk domain name search.
Ready to Claim Your .com Domain?
Type a name and see in seconds whether it is free on .com. If it is taken, we list close alternatives right away.
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