Domain Expiration when transfer is processing, will I lose it?

Question

I have registered my domain at netfirms.com and the expired date is 10-Feb-2013. I've started a transfer process to bigrock.com on 08-Feb-2013 and they have charged 1 year renual.

All the authentications are done, but BigRock says "Your current Registrar needs to approve your domain name's transfer. Please wait while this transfer request is processed."

I asked their support center and they told me it will take 5-7 days to process a transfer. Which means my domain will expire within that range of date.

I don't want to lose my domain. Please suggest me what to do now.

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I searched all over and found something. According to ICAN FAQ:

Q) My domain name has just expired. Can my registrar require me to pay for a renewal before I can transfer to a new registrar?

A) No. Your new registrar of choice can initiate a transfer request on an expired domain name once they receive the required authorization from you. Expiration or nonrenewal of a domain name is not a valid reason for denial of a transfer request. Note that if the registrar has already begun the deletion process on the domain name and its status shows it to be within a 30-day Redemption Grace Period, the name must be restored. by your current registrar before it can be transferred.

Is that mean I'm saved? Please suggest me, I'm in a huge load of tension.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Expiring Domains Explained

Whenever a domain expires you do not lose your domain straight away, ICAN has policy's in place that gives registers more time to renew their domain once it has expired. ICANN refers to these as a Grace Period and a Redemption Period. There is actually 2 stages until entering the 3rd stage where your domain becomes registerable to other people.

Stage 1: Grace Period

As soon as your domain expires your domain enters the Grace Period, this stage means that you can renew your domain within 30 days without additional charges apart from the standard renewal cost set by the registrar. No one else can take your domain during this period and some domain registrars even allow you to transfer during this period while many do not. Failing to renew your domain during the standard allowance of 30 days enters you into the Redemption Period.

Stage 2: Redemption Period

Once 30 days has passed and the domain in question remains nonrenewable then it enters the redemption period, this stage of the expiring process normally lasts 40 days. During this period again like the Grace Period no one can register your domain and it is still locked to the original person who registered it. But unlike the grace period charges to renew the domain will be much more than just the renewal cost and this varies from registrar to registrar.

Stage 3 & 4: Pending Delete & Dropped Domain

Failing to renew your domain during the grace and redemption period will enter the final stage of it being released into the public, this is referred to as pending delete and dropped. Whenever a .com or .net TLD is due to drop it will drop around 11AM to 12:15 PST, It is still renewable during these last final moments.

Conclusion

You actually have around 70 days to renew your domain, it doesn't matter if its in process of being transferred the domain will still be yours but will require renewing once transfer has completed.