How to Avoid GoDaddy’s 60-Day Domain Transfer Lock

Users of GoDaddy’s domain registration services experience a 60-day transfer lock on the domain (meaning the domain can’t be transferred to a different registrar for at least 60 days) in the following situations:

• When registering a new domain or transferring a domain to GoDaddy
• When updating the organization field of the domain registration
• When updating the first name or last name fields of the domain contact in cases when there is no organization listed for the domain registrant

There is two fairly simple ways to avoid the GoDaddy 60-day domain transfer lock. Here they are:

• Transfer the domain to the new registrar and owner without updating the organization field or the first or last name fields for the domain. This method doesn’t work for newly registered domains or domains that have been recently transferred, but it does work to avoid the 60-day lock that is associated with updating the organization and contact field information. In this situation, the new owner of the domain can update the organization and contact first and last names once the domain has been transferred to the new registrar.
• Contact GoDaddy’s 60-day lock review team at REVIEW60@SECURESERVER.NET to have them review your situation and verify that the domain is being transferred legitimately. As your case is being reviewed, you will likely be asked to provide some information to verify that you are intending to transfer the domain in question.

Why Is There a 60-Day Domain Transfer Lock Anyhow?

The 60-day domain transfer lock associated with the changes mentioned above are meant to protect domain owners from hijacking. As explained by one of the GoDaddy community moderators, there is a “definitive correlation between Registrant contact information updates and domain name hijacking.”

This 60-day lock actually comes from a policy from ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) that went into effect in August of 2016. That policy states that, “Registrars must impose a 60-day inter-registrar transfer lock following a Change of Registrant but registrars may allow registered name holders to opt out of the lock prior to any Change of Registrant request.” (see policy #5 in the image below)

The problem that many GoDaddy domain registration users experience with GoDaddy’s implementation of this policy is that, unlike most other registrars, there is not a straight-forward, inline opt-out from this lock. Many feel that GoDaddy intentionally makes it difficult to overcome the lock simply to keep more domains in their possession as a registrar.

This perspective may be true, but as described above, you can manually verify with GoDaddy that you are transferring the domain and have them make an exception for you so that the 60-day domain lock won’t apply.