Support Start > Billing and Account Management > Billing and Payment > Web Hosting Cancellation Fees > Abandon Domain Name

When we register a domain name on your behalf as part of our hosting service, you can usually “abandon” that domain name without any further fees when you cancel the hosting service — even if it’s before the expiration date of the domain name.

You can “abandon” a domain name if:

• It ends with .com, .net, .org, or any other domain name extension that costs no more than a “.com” domain name (currently $16.92 or less); and
• You’ve “abandoned” fewer than three domain names in the previous 90 days.

You won’t be able to abandon a domain name if the retail price for that domain name registration is more than the price of a “.com” domain name, or you’ve already abandoned three other domain names in the previous 90 days.

In those situations, you’ll be charged a prorated fee to cover the remainder of the most recent domain registration year we provided. (You then own the domain name until it expires, of course.) For example, if you cancel your web hosting service after nine months, you would be charged 25% of the annual domain name only fee to cover the remaining three months of domain name registration we’ve provided.

Why can’t I abandon all domain names?

The central domain name registry always sells domain names in one year increments, and we have to buy them in one year increments. It isn’t possible for us to get a partial refund if you stop using it partway through the year.

If you buy hosting service from us and the domain name doesn’t cost any more than a .com domain name, we ignore that cost as a small loss if you abandon it. The hosting fees you paid will usually cover it, or come close.

But if you choose a premium domain name that costs more money, or you abandon several domain names at once, it costs us more. The fee simply covers the original cost to buy them.

When you initially sign up for hosting for one of those domain names, you’ll see a message saying something similar to “Note that .biz domain names can’t be “abandoned” without a fee before they expire”.