Domain Name Assignment Agreement: Transfer and Purchase Contract Terms
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The short answer
A domain name assignment agreement is a short contract in which the current registrant assigns every right in a named domain to a buyer for an agreed price. It needs seven things to be useful: the exact domain string, the price and currency, who pays escrow and transfer costs, the transfer method and deadline, seller warranties on ownership and non-infringement, an inspection period before funds release, and the governing law. What almost every free template leaves out is the part that actually causes disputes: registrar rules decide whether the transfer deadline you wrote down is even possible, and those rules are changing.
Last updated August 2026 · ICANN transfer policy status re-checked this month · General information about how domain deals are papered and closed, not legal advice
What a domain name assignment agreement must contain
A domain sale is a small contract with an unusual amount that can go wrong in the execution. The clauses below are the ones that earn their place. Everything else is boilerplate that a template will supply for you.
| Clause | What it has to say | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Identification of the asset | The exact domain, written out in full, plus any variants or typo names included in the price | Buyers routinely assume the plural or the .net comes along. It does not unless it is named. |
| Parties and authority | Legal names, entity type, and a statement that the signer is the registrant or is authorized to act for them | Registration data is largely redacted, so the contract is where authority gets asserted and warranted. |
| Price, currency, payment method | The figure, the currency, and the named escrow agent or marketplace handling funds | Naming the escrow agent in the contract stops a mid-deal switch to a lookalike site. |
| Allocation of costs | Who pays escrow fees, transfer or renewal costs, and any card or PayPal surcharge | Escrow on a mid-five-figure deal runs into the hundreds. Silence here becomes an argument later. |
| Transfer mechanics and deadline | Push or inter-registrar transfer, who initiates, and a deadline that reflects real registrar timing | The single most common source of dispute, because most templates invent a deadline the rules will not allow. |
| Seller representations and warranties | Clear title, no liens, no pending UDRP or litigation, no unlawful prior use, no infringement | This is what you sue on if the name turns out to be encumbered or already under challenge. |
| Non-registration covenant | Seller agrees not to register a confusingly similar name after closing | Missing from most free templates. Prevents the seller re-selling the plural to your competitor. |
| Inspection and release | A defined window for the buyer to confirm control before escrow releases funds | Turns hope into a process. Escrow services build this in; private deals often forget it. |
| Indemnity | Each side covers losses caused by its own breach or misrepresentation | Matters most where the domain carried prior traffic, content or email you are inheriting. |
| Governing law and forum | A named state or country, and whether disputes go to courts or arbitration | Cross-border domain deals are the norm. Without this, a remedy can cost more than the domain. |
We run a domain marketplace, so we have an interest in people transacting through structured channels rather than by bank transfer to a stranger. Read the section below on when this is overkill: plenty of small deals genuinely do not need a negotiated contract.
Assignment agreement, transfer agreement, purchase agreement: what is the difference?
Mostly nothing, and that is worth saying plainly because searching for the wrong term sends people down a rabbit hole. All three describe the same event. The names differ by which part of it the drafter chose to emphasize.
| Term | What it emphasizes | When you will see it |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name assignment agreement | The legal handover of rights in the name | Law-firm drafting, and deals where the domain sits alongside trademarks or other IP |
| Domain transfer agreement | The registrar-level move from one account to another | Deals where the mechanics are the sensitive part, including corporate and agency handovers |
| Domain name purchase agreement | The commercial bargain, price and payment | Straight buy and sell transactions between two businesses |
| Domain name sale agreement | Identical to the above, written from the seller side | Seller-supplied paperwork and broker templates |
| Website ownership transfer agreement | A broader deal: domain plus content, code, accounts and revenue | Site flips, where a domain-only contract would be genuinely insufficient |
Only the last row is a materially different document. If you are buying a live website rather than a bare name, a domain assignment on its own will leave the hosting, the analytics, the email and the content licensing unresolved. Everything above it is the same contract under a different heading, so pick whichever name your counterparty used and move on to the terms.
The registrar rules that decide whether your transfer clause is possible
This is the part general contract templates almost never cover, and it is the part that breaks deals. A clause saying the seller will transfer the domain to the buyer's registrar within five business days can be flatly impossible depending on what happened to the name in the previous two months.
| Rule | Effect today | What to write in the contract |
|---|---|---|
| 60-day inter-registrar lock | Triggered by a new registration, a completed transfer, or a change of registrant. Blocks moving registrars, not selling. | Warrant that no lock-triggering event has happened in the last 60 days, or allow a push instead |
| Account push at the same registrar | Usually instant and free, and it sidesteps the inter-registrar lock entirely | Name it as the preferred method where both parties hold accounts at the same registrar |
| Losing registrar response window | Five calendar days to respond to a transfer request, and no response counts as approval | Set the deadline from the date the authorization code is supplied, not from signature |
| Authorization code delivery | Must be provided within five calendar days of a valid request from the registrant | Make supplying the code and unlocking the domain an explicit seller obligation with its own deadline |
| Transfer adds a year | An inter-registrar transfer renews the name for a year on top of the remaining term, up to ten years | Say who bears that renewal cost, since it is charged to the gaining side |
| Registration data is redacted | RDAP replaced public WHOIS as the definitive source for gTLD data, and contact details are largely hidden | Require a control proof, such as a DNS TXT record you specify, before funding escrow |
The change coming to the 60-day lock
On 12 March 2025, at ICANN82 in Seattle, the GNSO Council voted to accept the final report of its Transfer Policy Review working group, containing 47 recommendations. Two of them matter directly to anyone drafting a domain sale contract. The change-of-registrant lock is removed entirely, so selling a name will no longer freeze it in place for two months afterward. In its place, registrars must apply a mandatory 720-hour lock, which is 30 days, on domains that have just been created or just transferred in. Registrars with longer locks must shorten them, and registrars with no lock must add one. The stated purpose is to reduce credit card fraud and to make trademark complaints such as UDRP workable.
The requirement to notify the gaining and losing registrants on a registrant change also goes, on the reasoning that notifications provide little protection once the losing registrant's email has already been compromised.
The timing is the part to be careful about. Domain Incite estimated at least 18 months from board approval before the changes go live, and as of August 2026 no confirmed effective date has been published. So the rules above are what registrars enforce today. If you are drafting a contract that will complete over the next few months, write it against the current 60-day rule and add a clause saying the transfer window adjusts to whatever registrar policy applies at closing. That single sentence saves renegotiating a deal that a policy change made technically impossible.
How the money and the domain move, in order
The contract sets the terms. Sequencing is what actually protects you, because in a private domain sale somebody has to move first and neither party wants it to be them.
Step 1
Verify control, not identity
Ask the seller to place a string you choose in a DNS TXT record or on the live site. Redacted registration data makes identity hard to confirm and control easy. Control is what you are buying anyway.
Step 2
Sign before funding
Both parties sign the assignment. Electronic signature is fine for this in ordinary US commercial practice. Nothing moves until the document names the domain, the price and the deadline.
Step 3
Buyer funds escrow
The escrow agent confirms receipt to both sides. The seller now knows the money is real, which is the only thing that reliably gets an unlock and an authorization code moving.
Step 4
Seller unlocks and releases the code
Or performs an account push if you share a registrar, which is faster and avoids the lock. The contract should give this its own deadline separate from the overall transfer deadline.
Step 5
Buyer inspects
Confirm you can change nameservers and contact data, that auto-renew is under your control, and that the expiry date is what you were told. This is the inspection period doing its job.
Step 6
Funds release
Only now. If something is wrong, the dispute happens while the money is still held by a neutral party, which is a completely different negotiation from trying to claw it back.
Escrow is the cost of that sequencing. Escrow.com charges on a sliding scale that starts at 2.6 percent with a $50 minimum on the first band and falls as the value rises, and its Concierge tier is priced at twice the standard fee. Card and PayPal funding carry a processing surcharge on small transactions. The full band-by-band picture, including the widely repeated rate that is no longer current, is in what domain escrow actually costs, and domain escrow covers how the holding and release process works end to end.
When you need a negotiated agreement, and when you do not
Most domain purchases do not need a bespoke contract. If you buy a listed name through a marketplace, the marketplace terms govern the sale, escrow is built in, and the transaction record plus the transfer log is your evidence. Paying a lawyer to paper a $1,200 purchase that already has escrow behind it is spending real money to reduce a small risk.
The calculus flips fast, though, and it flips on consequences rather than on price alone.
A template plus escrow is enough when
- The domain is a bare name with no site, traffic or email attached
- You are buying through a marketplace that already holds funds in escrow
- The price is an amount you could absorb losing
- Nothing in the deal except the domain changes hands
- The name has no obvious connection to anyone's trademark
Get a lawyer to draft or review when
- The domain matches a registered trademark, yours or somebody else's
- You are buying a running website, not just the name
- The deal includes social handles, code, content, customers or a non-compete
- Payment is staged, financed, or tied to milestones rather than paid at once
- The counterparty is an entity you cannot verify, or is in a jurisdiction you could not practically sue in
- Losing the name after paying would materially damage the business
One risk deserves naming separately, because it targets exactly the people reading a page like this. A deal in progress is when fake escrow sites appear: a counterparty who steers you to an unfamiliar escrow domain, or who sends a payment link at the last moment, is running the oldest play in the business. Name the escrow agent in the signed agreement and type the address yourself. The wider set of patterns is in our guide to domain name scams, and whether Escrow.com is safe to use covers how to tell the real service from a clone.
Domain assignment and transfer agreement questions
What does a domain name assignment agreement mean?
It is a contract in which the current registrant assigns all of their rights in a domain name to a buyer, in exchange for payment. It records the exact domain, the price, the transfer method and deadline, and the seller promises about ownership and non-infringement. The word assignment matters, because you cannot buy a domain the way you buy a car. What changes hands is the registration and the rights attached to it, not a title deed.
How do I get a domain name assignment agreement?
Three routes. Marketplaces and escrow services generate a record of sale automatically when a listed domain sells, which is enough for most deals. Free templates from legal publishers cover the standard clauses and suit small private sales. For a purchase large enough that losing the name would hurt, a lawyer drafting against your facts is worth the cost, particularly where a trademark or an existing business is attached.
Does GoDaddy provide a domain name assignment agreement?
Not as a standalone contract you can request. Sales through GoDaddy, Afternic or Dan are governed by those marketplace terms, and the transaction record plus the transfer log is what evidences the sale. That is sufficient for a routine purchase. It is not a substitute for a negotiated agreement when the deal includes anything beyond the domain, such as trademarks, content, social handles or a non-compete.
How binding is a purchase agreement for a domain name?
As binding as any other contract for the sale of an asset, provided there is offer, acceptance and consideration. The practical weakness is not enforceability, it is enforcement cost. Suing a seller in another country over a $4,000 domain is not economic. That is why the real protection in a domain deal is escrow and sequencing, not the strength of the remedies clause.
Can you buy a domain outright?
You buy the exclusive right to register and control it, renewable indefinitely, which is as close to outright as domains get. Nobody owns a domain name freehold. Registration is a contract with a registrar under registry and ICANN rules, so the name persists as long as it is renewed and not successfully challenged. A well-drafted agreement should say the seller assigns all rights, rather than that the seller sells the property.
What are the domain transfer rules after a sale?
Under ICANN transfer policy the losing registrar has five calendar days to respond to a transfer request, and failure to respond counts as approval. The authorization code must be supplied within five calendar days of a valid request. Most transfers finish in five to seven days, or one to two when both sides approve manually. A transfer adds a year to the remaining term and causes no downtime. The full timeline is in how long a domain transfer takes.
What is the domain transfer fee, and who pays it?
The registrar transfer itself costs roughly one year of registration, since a transfer includes a renewal, and an account push at the same registrar is normally free. Escrow is the larger cost and is separate. Escrow.com prices on a sliding scale starting at 2.6 percent with a $50 minimum on the first band. Convention puts escrow on the buyer, but it is negotiable and the agreement should say so explicitly rather than leaving it to convention.
Do I need a lawyer to buy a domain name?
Usually no for a routine purchase through a marketplace with escrow. Yes when the price is material to your business, when the domain matches an existing trademark or brand, when the seller is an entity you cannot verify, or when the deal bundles anything else in. A rough test: if the loss would be an annoyance, use a template and escrow. If it would be a problem, pay for advice.
What is the 60-day lock and does it stop a sale?
It blocks moving a domain to a different registrar, not selling it. Today the lock is triggered by a new registration, a completed inter-registrar transfer, or a change of registrant. An account push within the same registrar sidesteps it. In March 2025 the GNSO Council accepted recommendations that remove the change-of-registrant lock and replace the rest with a 720-hour lock, though registrars still enforce the current rules until implementation completes.
What should the seller warrant in the agreement?
That they are the registrant or authorized to act for them, that the domain is free of liens, security interests and third-party claims, that no UDRP or court proceeding is pending or threatened, that the domain has not been used unlawfully, and that they will not register a confusingly similar name afterward. That last one is skipped in most templates and is the one buyers most often wish they had.
Do I need a written agreement if I buy through a marketplace?
Not a separate one in most cases. The marketplace terms, the transaction record and the transfer log together document what happened, and escrow handles the sequencing. Write a separate agreement when the deal moves off-platform, when it includes assets beyond the domain, or when you need warranties the marketplace does not give you, which is most of the ones listed above.
What happens if the seller takes the money and does not transfer?
With escrow, very little: the funds have not been released, the escrow agent runs its dispute process, and you get your money back. Without escrow, you are relying on the contract and on being able to enforce it somewhere the seller has assets. That gap is the whole argument for escrow, and it is why the fee is worth paying on any deal you would mind losing.
Before you sign anything
Start with a number rather than a feeling: the domain worth calculator gives a range with the comparable sales behind it, and domain appraisal explains what those estimates can and cannot tell you. For the money side, domain escrow covers how funds and the transfer are sequenced. If you are the seller, transferring a domain to a new owner walks through the registrar side, and domain selling fees shows what each marketplace takes out of the price you agreed. If the owner has not replied yet and there is no deal to paper, our domain acquisition service handles the approach, and the GoDaddy Domain Broker Service explains what the paid alternative costs. If you would rather buy something already listed with escrow built in, browse premium domains for sale.
Know what the name is worth before you write a price into a contract.
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