Changing the holder of a domain

The holder of a domain is the person or company the domain belongs to in the registry. The holder decides about the domain and is the only party who can hand it over. Changing the holder is a different thing from changing the service provider or changing who pays the invoice.

You need a holder change for example when a domain is registered in an entrepreneur's own name and it should move to the company, when a company is sold, or when a domain moves to another company in a business transaction.

Three things that are easily confused

Changing the service provider means the domain moves under another registrar. The holder stays the same. This needs a registrar transfer key.

Changing the holder means the domain moves to a new owner. The service provider can stay the same. This needs an authorisation key.

Changing the name servers means the domain's traffic is directed somewhere else. It changes neither ownership nor the registrar. Read more in changing name servers.

How a holder change is done for a .fi domain

The registry for .fi and .ax domains is maintained by Traficom, and the change follows its rules.

1. The current holder orders an authorisation key. It can be ordered from the domain page in your account. Traficom creates the key and sends it by email to the holder recorded in the registry. Read more in the transfer key, or authorisation key.
2. The current holder passes the key to the new holder. The key is a one-time authorisation, so it is not worth sending on before the deal has been agreed.
3. The new holder makes a change request in their account. The request takes the domain name and the authorisation key.
4. We enter the change in the registry and confirm it. We let you know once it is done.

If the domain moves within the same legal entity, for example when a company's details change but the business ID stays the same, no authorisation key is needed. Tell us and we will take care of it.

How a holder change is done for .com and other international domains

International endings have no authorisation key. Instead the registry itself sends confirmation messages to both the old and the new holder, and the change proceeds only once they have been accepted. For this reason the change can take several days.

International domains also have a rule that .fi domains do not: after a holder change the domain cannot be transferred to another service provider for 60 days. This is the registry's own rule against misuse. If you intend to change both the holder and the service provider, do the service provider change first.

What a holder change does not change

The website, the email accounts and the DNS records stay as they are. The domain does not go offline. Billing moves to the new holder only from the next renewal, and old invoices stay with the party they were originally sent to.

If the change does not proceed

The most common reason is that the authorisation key has expired. The key is valid for one month from ordering, and a new one can be ordered at any time.

The other common reason is that the new holder's details are incomplete. The registry requires a full address and an identifier, that is a business ID from a company and a personal ID from an individual. You can complete the details in your account. Read more in changing your account details.

Note that an identifier that has been saved once cannot be changed by you. To the registry it is an identity, not a contact detail. If the identifier is wrong, contact support.

Transferring a domain from one registrar to another »