WHOIS Lookup

WHOIS Lookup — Find Registration Details for Any Domain

Look up who runs a domain and when it was registered. Enter a domain name and see its WHOIS record, straight from the registry.

How to Look Up a Domain

Type a domain such as example.com and click Lookup WHOIS — a pasted web address is trimmed down to the domain for you. The tool asks the root WHOIS server at IANA which registry manages that extension, follows the referral to the registry's own server, and shows the raw response in a text box, with a note saying which server answered. If the domain isn't registered, you'll see a message saying no record was found.

Reading a WHOIS Record

The exact fields depend on the registry, but a record commonly includes the registrar, the dates the domain was created, updated, and expires, its status codes, and its name servers. That makes WHOIS useful for checking when a domain is due to renew, seeing whether a name is taken and roughly how old it is, and finding out which registrar to contact. Personal details for the owner are often hidden or replaced by a privacy service these days, because of data-protection rules and registrar privacy options, so don't expect names and addresses. The tool shows the registry's own response and doesn't follow on to the registrar's separate WHOIS server.

WHOIS uses its own network port, which some hosting providers block. If that happens, the tool tells you it couldn't reach the WHOIS network rather than showing a blank result.

Good Uses for This Tool

Checking whether a domain is available or about to expire, finding a domain's registrar, verifying that a domain is genuine before you trust a website or an email, and looking up name servers.

What Happens to the Domain You Enter?

Unlike most tools on this site, this one runs on our server: the domain you enter is sent there so the server can contact the WHOIS servers on your behalf, which a browser can't do. Only valid domain names are accepted.