What is a domain registrar?
A registrar is a company accredited to sell domain names and hold the account they live in. When you buy a domain, a registrar is the party that actually registers it for you and where you log in to change nameservers, renew, or transfer it away.
Every registered domain has exactly one registrar at a time, and the record names it. That is what this tool reads.
Registry, registrar, reseller: what is the difference?
Three different companies, and confusing them is why most people end up on a page like this.
registryregistrarreselleryou
| Registry | Runs the ending. Verisign runs .com, Nominet runs .uk. One per ending. You never deal with them directly. |
|---|---|
| Registrar | Accredited to sell names in that ending and holds your account. This is who the record names. |
| Reseller | Whoever actually took your money. Often a hosting company selling through a registrar, and their name appears nowhere in the record. |
Why is the registrar a company I have never heard of?
Almost always because you bought through a reseller. Plenty of hosts sell domains through Tucows, PDR or Enom, so that is the name on the official record even though your invoice says something completely different.
The practical way to find who you actually pay: search your email for a domain renewal receipt. The reseller is on that, and the registrar usually is not. Once you know both, you know which one to contact for what. Billing and support go to the reseller; the underlying registration lives with the registrar.
How do you report abuse to a registrar?
Use the abuse contact from the result above. It is for the domain being used to cause harm: phishing pages, malware, spam campaigns. Accredited registrars are required to publish an address and to act on what arrives there.
Include the exact domain, what you observed, when it happened, and evidence such as email headers or the specific URL. Vague reports get closed. It is also not a support channel, so a complaint about a website being merely annoying or wrong will be ignored, and reasonably so.
If a registrar does not act on a genuine report, ICANN runs a complaint process that escalates it above them.
How do you regain access to a domain you own?
This comes up when an agency, a former employee or a long-gone contractor registered the name. The registrar is the only party who can help, and they will require proof.
Expect to show that the registrant details on file match your organisation, or documentary evidence that the name belongs to you. It takes time and there is no shortcut. What this tool gives you is the correct company to start that conversation with, which is often the missing piece.
What is not in any public record: your account username, which email address the account uses, or anything that helps with a password reset.
Can you tell when a domain changed registrar?
Sometimes. Some registries publish a transfer date and most do not. When it is there, the result shows it.
When it is missing, a recent move is genuinely invisible. The record last changed date is not a substitute, because it moves for nameserver edits, renewals, contact changes and plenty else besides a transfer. Reading it as a transfer date is a common and understandable mistake.
What is an IANA registrar ID?
A number ICANN assigns to each accredited registrar. It is useful because registrar names get written inconsistently across systems while the number stays fixed, so if you are matching records or filing a complaint the ID is the unambiguous identifier.
Related tools
If you are trying to move a domain, transfer readiness works out what is standing in the way. For the complete record use the domain registration lookup, and to find out who is behind the name rather than who sold it, see domain owner lookup.