Registry states
Redemption period vs pending delete
They look adjacent and they are not equivalent. One is a 30-day window where the name is still yours for a fee. The other is a 5-day countdown you cannot stop.
Both statuses appear on a domain that is on its way out, and both are published by the registry. The similarity ends there. Confusing them costs money in one direction and opportunity in the other.
redemptionPeriod | pendingDelete | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 30 days, fixed | 5 days, fixed |
| Can the owner recover it? | Yes, by restore request | No, at any price |
| Cost to recover | Typically $80–200 | Not possible |
| Can anyone else register it? | No | No — not until release |
| Does it resolve? | No | No |
| Is the drop date predictable? | No — depends on when the owner gives up | Yes — 5 days out |
If the domain is yours
redemptionPeriod is a deadline, and a real one. The name is recoverable, but through a restore request rather than a renewal, and at roughly ten times the price. Thirty days is fixed, so the date is knowable the moment the status appears.
pendingDelete means the decision has already been made. There is no restore, no appeal and no registrar escalation that works. The only remaining option is to try to register the name again after it drops, in competition with anyone else who noticed.
If you are waiting for the domain
The positions reverse. redemptionPeriod is the weaker signal: the owner can still pay to keep it, and plenty do at exactly this point, because redemption is when the outage finally gets someone's attention.
pendingDelete is the one that matters. The owner has passed every chance to intervene, the countdown is fixed at five days, and for the first time the drop is genuinely predictable. This is the window backorder services are built around — and it is why a name entering pending delete is worth knowing about on the day it happens rather than the week after.
Neither status means "available". A name in either state is still registered to its original holder as far as the registry is concerned. Availability only begins when the record is deleted, after pendingDelete ends.
What the statuses actually look like
A registry response lists statuses as an array, and a domain in redemption typically carries more than one. For example:
redemptionPeriod— the domain is in RGPserverHold— the registry has removed it from the zone, which is why it stopped resolvingserverTransferProhibited— it cannot be moved to another registrar while in this state
Reading only the first status in the list is a common way to get this wrong. The recoverability answer lives in whichever of redemptionPeriod or pendingDelete is present, not in the hold flags that accompany them.
Common questions
Can a domain in pendingDelete be saved?
No. Unlike redemptionPeriod, there is no restore path from pendingDelete. It lasts 5 days and ends in the name being released.
How long does redemptionPeriod last?
30 days, fixed by ICANN policy for gTLDs. That makes it the one stage of the expiry sequence whose end date can be calculated exactly.
Can I register a domain that is in redemptionPeriod?
No. It is still registered to its existing holder, who can restore it. It only becomes registrable after pendingDelete ends and the registry releases it.
Which status means a drop is actually coming?
pendingDelete. In redemptionPeriod the owner can still pay to keep the name, and many do, because redemption is usually when the outage gets noticed.
Get told the moment a domain crosses between them
DropPerch alerts on each transition separately, so redemption and pending delete are different emails rather than one vague "expiring soon" notice.