How to close a domain deal safely through escrow

Put the terms in one written message

A price agreed in a chat is a promise, not a deal. Before any money moves, write every term in one message and have the other side confirm it. The terms are the name, the price and its currency, the escrow and who pays its fee, how the name is delivered, the payment day and the inspection periodInspection periodIn an escrow deal, the days a buyer has after delivery to check the name and accept or reject it before the seller is paid.Read the definition, meaning the days the buyer has to check the name.

Escrow.com asks for most of these terms when a transaction opens. Its help pages say in 2026 that the parties agree on the inspection period at the start and choose who pays the fee.

Elliot Silver is an investor who writes. When Silver buys a name privately, the seller receives an outline of the purchase. Published on DomainInvesting on 19 March 2021, that outline lists eight steps, from a signed purchase agreementPurchase agreementThe written contract of a sale, signed by buyer and seller before the money moves. On a large sale, a lawyer drafts it.Read the definition to the release of the funds. Its aim is to show a first-time seller that the work is short.

Put a deadline in the same message. Silver wrote of agreeing on a price only if the buyer pays within 24 hours, and of giving no more than a few days, to avoid cold feet (DomainInvesting, 12 August 2025). The same article adds that large companies and identity checks can take longer.

How escrow works, and what it checks

An escrow is a neutral company that holds the buyer's money until the name has moved, and then pays the seller. In a marketplaceMarketplaceA site where owners list domains for sale and buyers make offers, such as Sedo or Afternic.Read the definition sale, the marketplace does this itself. For a private sale, Escrow.com's home page in 2026 sets out five steps.

Most transactions close within 1 to 20 business days, Escrow.com's help pages say in 2026. For a transaction above $3,000, the same 2026 pages add, every party first verifies its identity. The inspection period is the time the buyer has to accept or reject the name, and it runs 1 to 30 days from delivery. If the buyer does nothing, the seller is paid when the period ends.

In 2026 Escrow.com's domain page asks 2.6% of the price up to $5,000, with a $50 minimum, then 2.4% up to $50,000. By our arithmetic, that is $240 on a $10,000 sale in 2026. Escrow.com lets either side pay the fee, or both pay half. If a deal is cancelled after Escrow.com has approved the buyer's funds, or the buyer rejects the name, the whole fee falls to the buyer.

The same page says Escrow.com pays out once it is satisfied that the name has moved. One way it checks is to read the registrarRegistrarThe company you buy and renew a domain through, such as Namecheap or GoDaddy. It does not own the name, it only registers it for you.Read the definition's WHOISWHOISThe public record of who registered a domain and when. Most owner contact detail is hidden by privacy rules, but the dates are not.Read the definition and find the buyer there as the registrantRegistrantThe person or company the official record names as the holder of a domain. Changing the registrant can block a move to another registrar for a while.Read the definition, the name's holder.

Escrow.com's identity checks are another matter. As Silver understood it, writing on DomainInvesting on 8 March 2018, those checks confirm who each side is, not that the buyer has the funds or that the seller owns the name.

Escrow.com's Concierge first takes the name into its own registrar account. On Domain Name Wire on 23 February 2016, Andrew Allemann's launch report said this ends the worry about a seller who only edits the record and calls the name delivered. Concierge has no inspection period and costs double, added Allemann, who had never heard of a loss in the standard service. Concierge costs 5.2% up to $5,000 in 2026.

1. 1Both sides agree on the terms.
2. 2The buyer pays Escrow.com.
3. 3The seller transfers the name.
4. 4The buyer approves the name.
5. 5Escrow.com pays the seller.

Account push or transfer code

A sold name reaches the buyer in one of two ways. An account push moves the name into the buyer's account at the same registrar. A transfer moves it to another registrar, once the lock is lifted and the transfer code is given. The lessons on registering and on leaving a registrar explain how a transfer works.

A push can be a way around the sixty-day locks. Cloudflare's documentation of April 2026 describes one: a change of the holder's name, organization or email can bar a move to another registrar for sixty days, and a further change restarts the count. While such a lock is in place, Escrow.com's help page says in 2026, a push at the same registrar can be common.

For a sold name still under the 60-day lock that follows a new registration, Afternic offers the buyer a push at the current registrar, as it announced on 31 March 2025.

Namecheap's help page, updated in August 2025, says a push between two Namecheap accounts needs no sixty-day wait after a registration or a transfer. The page adds that a push is final: Namecheap cannot reverse it. So a seller pushes the name only once the escrow has confirmed the funds.

Some registrars add rules of their own. In Cloudflare's documentation of April 2026, moving a name between two Cloudflare accounts locks it against transfers for 30 days. A name under Cloudflare's sixty-day lock cannot make such a move either. Read your registrar's page before you promise a delivery day.

Read the record after delivery, and keep the file

The deal is done when the record and the account say so. After a transfer, the registryRegistryThe organisation that runs an ending, like the company behind .com. It sets the rules and the price registrars pay.Read the definition, the company that runs the ending, names the new registrar in its record. After an account push, the registrar stays the same. On .com, our WHOIS shows no holder in the registry's record, only that the holder's details sit at the registrar. So the evidence is the name in your own account.

Next, make a change that only the holder can make. Point the name at your own nameserversNameserverThe server that answers for a domain on the internet, telling browsers and mail where to go. Changing it moves the site or the mail to another host.Read the definition and turn its transfer lockTransfer lockA setting that stops a name from being moved to another registrar. The owner turns it off at their registrar before a sale or a move.Read the definition on, then read Where it points and the Lock state again.

We hold no escrow, no listing and no payment, and we keep no portfolio of the names you own, so the file is yours to keep. Put in it the agreed terms, the escrow's emails, the registrar's confirmation and the record you read after delivery.

Scams aimed at buyers

Escrow.com's fraud page in 2026 describes scammers who give a seemingly good reason not to use Escrow.com, and who recommend another site instead. The warning signs on that page include a site whose domain was registered weeks or months ago, nobody you can reach, no license details, payment from one person to another, and fees that look too low.

The same page warns of emails sent from lookalike addresses such as [email protected]. It also warns against paying by a wire to an individual or by gift card, since that money cannot be recovered. Type the escrow's address into your browser yourself, and never open a deal from a link in an email.

Konstantinos Zournas published a complaint by VPN.com, a broker, on OnlineDomain on 28 July 2022. The complaint alleges that a fake escrow confirmed a delivery that never happened, and that the name never left its registrar. A stolen name can pass through a real escrow too, as the lesson on ownership history explains.

Scams aimed at sellers

A scam aimed at a seller asks the seller to move first. The request can be to push the name before the funds are confirmed, to pay for a certificate, or to take a payment that the buyer can reverse.

PayPal had begun to cover domain sellers, Andrew Allemann reported on Domain Name Wire on 7 August 2020, but only those with evidence of delivery. PayPal's terms in 2020 also asked for signature confirmation on intangible goods above $750. In Allemann's view, PayPal might be enough for low-value names, while a larger sale is worth taking through escrow or a marketplace.

A careful buyer may ask how to know that you are not a scammer. A prospect asked Silver just that (DomainInvesting, 13 August 2026). In reply, Silver pointed to an accurate public WHOIS record, offered to answer from the email address in that record, and sent a screenshot of the account.

If the WHOIS record had been private, Silver would probably have changed where the name pointed while the prospect looked. A change made on request is evidence that the buyer sees happen.

Before the money or the name moves

• Put the price, who pays the fee, the escrow, the delivery and the deadline in one message that the other side confirms.
• Open the escrow by typing its address yourself, never from a link in an email.
• In WHOIS, look up the domain of an escrow site you do not know: a registration weeks old is a warning.
• Read the confirmation of the funds in your own escrow account before you deliver.
• Read the registrar's rules on pushes and locks before you promise a delivery day.
• Never pay for a certificate, an appraisal or any other fee to sell your own name.
• Never pay by a wire to a person, by gift card or in crypto outside escrow.
• After delivery, read the registrar, the lock state and the nameservers in WHOIS.
• Keep the terms, the escrow's emails, the registrar's confirmation and that record.