New ICANN Domain Transfer Policy
ICANN’s New Transfer Policy came into effect on December 1, 2016 setting out new rules regarding changing or updating a domain name’s registrant contact information.
What is the New Transfer Policy?
The Transfer Policy, formerly known as “Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy” or IRTP, sets out how domain transfers should be handled. Up until now, this policy only covered domain transfers between registrars. From
December 1, 2016 on this will also cover the process of changing ownership of a domain from one registrant to another.
What is the impact of this change?
What this means is that when a registrant performs an update to the registered name, organisation or email address for any gTLD (non-country code) domain they own, a Change of Registrant process will be
triggered. This process involves an approval email sent to both the New and Prior Registrant.
The changes will not take effect until the change has been confirmed by both parties, and following the change, the domain will enter a 60 day lock period during which it cannot be transferred or modified again.
If either party declines the change, then the change of registrant request is cancelled and the previous whois info remains the same.
In most cases, following a request to change the WHOIS information for their domain, the new registrant will receive an email. This email will ask them:
- To approve or decline the Change of Registrant.
- To confirm that their information is correct.
Upon approval by the New Registrant, a similar email will be sent to the Prior Registrant asking them to also approve the Change of Registrant.
Only once both approvals have been received is the change of registrant completed.
