WHOIS is how a domain registry answers the question 'who holds this name, and until when'. It has been answering it since 1982, over a plain-text protocol on port 43. Its replacement, RDAP, returns the same facts as structured JSON and is now mandatory for every generic extension. Both are still in use: around 240 extensions publish no RDAP service at all, including .de, .io, .co, .eu, .ch, .at, .be, .dk and .jp, and every result here names the protocol its answer came from.

Since GDPR took effect in 2018, registries and registrars redact personal data from public registration records by default. What remains is the registrar, the important dates, the status codes and the nameservers, which is what this page shows. Contact details are generally only released through the registrar's own request process, or to parties with a legal basis for asking.

Usually never: most registrations renew automatically, so an expiry date is not a release date. The exception is worth watching for, and this page calls it out. A status of 'redemption period' means the registration has actually been deleted and sits in a 30-day window in which only the former holder may restore it. 'Pending delete' means that window has passed and the name is queued for release, normally within five days.

A small number of extensions publish neither RDAP nor WHOIS. For those, the only remaining signal is whether the name resolves at all, which correlates strongly with registration but is not the registry's word, since a name can be registered with no nameservers ever configured. Where that happens the answer is labelled 'dns' rather than presented as authoritative.

No. This is a read-only query to the registry, the same one any WHOIS client makes, and nothing about it is passed to a registrar. Domain front-running from public lookup tools is a persistent rumour rather than a documented practice, but if it worries you, the safest habit is to register a name promptly once you have decided on it.

Yes. Type it in its own script, so münchen.de works, and it is converted to the punycode form registries answer about, which is shown alongside the name you typed.

Treat it as a window, not an appointment. It is arithmetic on ICANN's own periods — 30 days of redemption, then up to five of pending delete — counted from the last change to the record, which is when the deletion was registered. Registries then run their own drop schedules on top of that, so a name that looks due on a Tuesday can go on a Thursday. It is also worth knowing that dropping names are caught by backorder services within seconds of release, so being early matters more than being exact.

A DS record at the registry is the top link in a chain of cryptographic signatures over a domain's DNS. When one is published, a resolver that validates can tell a genuine answer for that domain from a forged one; when there is none, DNS answers about the name are taken on trust. Most domains publish none, so an unsigned delegation is normal rather than a fault. Where the registry does publish DS records we show the key tag, the signing algorithm and the digest exactly as it holds them.

Those are glue records. When a domain's nameservers live under the domain they serve — ns1.example.com answering for example.com — finding them would require already knowing where they are, so the registry publishes their addresses alongside the delegation to break the circle. A nameserver hosted elsewhere needs no glue, which is why most records show none.