EPP status codes.

EPP is the protocol registrars use to talk to registries, and its status codes are the part of it the public can see. Every domain carries one or more, and they are published through RDAP and WHOIS. They are the ground truth about a domain's state: not an inference from its expiry date, but the registry stating what it will and will not permit.

The prefix tells you who set the flag and therefore whether you can do anything about it. A client code was set by your registrar, usually on your instruction or by its default policy, and you can generally change it from your account. A server code was set by the registry itself, and you cannot — those tend to indicate a dispute, a legal hold, a court order or an abuse action, and they need a conversation rather than a settings toggle.

the codes worth recognising

clientTransferProhibited is the ordinary registrar lock. It blocks transfers out. It should be on almost all the time, and you clear it only when you actually intend to move. clientHold is more serious than it sounds: your registrar has asked the registry to remove the domain from the DNS zone entirely, so the site and mail are dark. It is typically applied for non-payment, a failed registrant contact verification, or an abuse complaint — and note that it is not the same thing as expiry, so a domain can be perfectly current and still be switched off.

autoRenewPeriod means the registry auto-renewed the domain at its expiry date and you are in the grace period — recoverable at the normal price, for now. redemptionPeriod means you missed that window and recovery now means a restore fee. pendingDelete means the domain is a few days from being released and nothing can be done. Those three, in that order, are the entire deletion lifecycle written in status codes.

A few others are worth knowing. ok (sometimes shown as active) means no special state applies. inactive means no nameservers are set. pendingTransfer means a transfer is in flight, and if you did not start it, act immediately. And clientUpdateProhibited and clientDeleteProhibited are worth switching on for any domain you would be devastated to lose: they cost nothing and turn an accidental or malicious change into a deliberate two-step one. Whatever the codes say, the expiry checker will show you the live set for any domain, and portfolio monitoring keeps an eye on them changing.