01The sequence after an expiry
For the generic endings — .com, .net, .org, .llc and the rest of the thousand run under contract with ICANN — the steps after an expiry date are written into the registry agreements and into RFC 3915, and each one shows in the record as an EPP status code:
| Stage | Code | How long | Who can act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-renew grace | autoRenewPeriod | 0–45 days | The holder, usually at the normal price — the registrar decides how many days. |
| Redemption | redemptionPeriod | 30 days | The last holder only, through the registrar, with a restore fee. |
| Pending delete | pendingDelete | 5 days | Nobody. It cannot be restored. |
| Released | no record | — | Whoever registers it first. |
So from an expiry date a name can release no sooner than 35 days later — if the registrar deletes it on the day — and no later than 80, if it waits the whole 45. That window is what each card shows for a name that has not yet expired.
02How the dates are worked out
Once a name has moved on, the registry’s own code says which stage it is in, and
that outranks the calendar. A deletion is a change to the record, so the record’s
last changed date is taken as the day the stage began — when it is recent
enough to be that day — and the release is dated from it: five days after entering
pending delete, thirty-five after entering redemption. On 11 September 2026 this
page measured z34.org, pendingDelete, last changed on 6 September,
and dated its release on or about the 11th — the day the public drop lists gave
for it. Where the record gives no usable start, the card says so and shows the
whole remaining window instead.
Some registries renew a name at its expiry and publish next year’s date while the
grace runs; the autoRenewPeriod code gives that away, and the grace is
then counted from a year before the published date. Every card prints the rule it
used under its dates. The release itself happens in a daily batch at a time each
registry chooses; the page dates the day, never the minute.
03Why most names never drop
The holder can renew at any point until pending delete, and most do — often in grace, once the reminder emails finally land. Many registrars also sell names that reach grace in their own expired-name auctions, and a name sold there is transferred rather than deleted, so it never reaches the drop at all. The phase a card shows is a fact from the registry; the release date is only what would happen if nobody acts, and somebody usually does.
04The drop, and the catchers
When a name with any value is released, it is usually registered again within seconds, by drop-catching services that hold many registrar accreditations and send their requests the instant the registry’s batch runs. A person typing at a registrar’s search box does not win that race. The usual way to try is a backorder with one of those services — DropCatch, SnapNames, NameJet, Dynadot and others: you pay only if they catch it, and if several people have backordered the same name it goes to an auction among them.
The links on each card are plain links to those services, with no affiliate code and nothing earned by this site. A backorder is a bet on the drop, not a reservation, and none of them can catch a name its holder renews.
05Country codes keep their own clocks
The country-code registries — .uk, .de, .io, .co and some three hundred more — are outside ICANN’s contract and set their own rules: some delete on the expiry date, some hold a name for months, some publish no expiry date at all. None publishes a timetable this page could rely on, so for them a card shows the phase and the expiry the registry gives, and draws no release date. The registry’s own website is the place to read its policy.
06What is kept, and where
The watch list lives in this browser’s storage: each name, the last answer its registry gave, and the changes seen between checks. Nothing is sent anywhere but the name itself, to this site’s WHOIS engine, one at a time. This page does not check in the background when it is closed — a browser page cannot — so the Calendar .ics is the reminder: it puts the earliest possible release in your calendar with an alert a week and a day before, and a visit then re-reads the record.