Domain expiry
The Domain expiry checker watches the registration expiry date of a domain name and warns you before it lapses. Letting a domain expire can mean losing it to another registrant, so this is one of the most important domain-level checks.
This is a domain-level checker: it concerns the domain registration itself, not its DNS records. The expiry date is obtained from the registry through a WHOIS/RDAP lookup, together with the registrar name.
What it checks
A single rule, domain_expiry_check, compares the number of days remaining until expiry against two thresholds and reports the corresponding status.
| Status | Condition |
|---|---|
| Critical | Days remaining ≤ critical threshold |
| Warning | Days remaining ≤ warning threshold (but above critical) |
| OK | Days remaining above the warning threshold |
| Error | The WHOIS/RDAP lookup failed or no expiry date is available |
The message always reports how many days remain until expiry, regardless of status.
The checker also exposes a metric, domain_expiry_days_remaining, labelled with the registrar, so the time left can be tracked over time.
Options
| Option | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Warning threshold (days) | Days before expiry at which a warning is raised. Must be positive. | 30 |
| Critical threshold (days) | Days before expiry at which a critical alert is raised. Must be positive. | 7 |
Critical must be lower than warning
The critical threshold must be strictly smaller than the warning threshold. happyDomain rejects a configuration where critical_days is greater than or equal to warning_days.
In happyDomain
Enable this checker from the domain’s Checks view; see /en/pages/checks/ for how to configure and schedule checks. The domain name is filled in automatically.
For the inverse situation, watching a domain you do not yet own so you can register it once it lapses, see the /en/reference/checkers/domain-availability/ checker and /en/pages/domain-availability/. Related domain-level checkers include /en/reference/checkers/domain-lock/ and /en/reference/checkers/domain-contact/.