Extension guide

What happens when a .be domain expires.

Every extension handles expiry differently, and assumptions carried over from .com are wrong often enough to be expensive.

Who runs it

.be is administered by DNS Belgium, and its expiry process is a registry with a reasonable recovery window.

What happens after expiry

After expiry the domain enters quarantine before release.

The grace period

Quarantine typically runs around 40 days, during which the holder can reclaim it.

Recovery after that

Reclaiming during quarantine is done through a registrar.

Worth knowing about .be

DNS Belgium's quarantine is comparatively generous, but the domain does not resolve throughout it, so the site and mail are down for the whole period regardless.

What is true of every extension

  • The domain stops resolving the moment it expires. Website and email both stop at once, because both depend on the same records.
  • Your registrar panel may still show the domain as active while the rest of the internet already treats it as gone.
  • Every stage after expiry costs more than renewing did, and the last stage cannot be undone at any price.

Registry policies change. The shape of the process is stable, but confirm exact windows with your registrar before relying on a number.

Check yours

See when your .be actually renews.

The free check reads the registry directly rather than the registrar, which is the date the rest of the internet acts on.

Other extensions

Grace periods and recovery windows differ sharply by registry.

.se · .de · .at · .xyz · .es · .shop

All 32 in this set