Registrar Frequently Asked Questions

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Technical Documentation

About the ENS Registrar
How many transactions are required to register a .eth name?
The registrar uses two transactions (commit and reveal) to register a name.
How long does it take to register a name using the .eth registrar?
It takes less than 5 minutes to register a name, including a 1-minute delay between the first and second transactions to prevent frontrunning.
Do we need to do anything to ensure continued use of existing ENS names?
Make sure you renew your ENS names before they expire! You add registration years to any name at any time, and for any duration you'd like.
What happens if I have several ENS names with different renewal dates?
You can add registration years to many names at a time on your My Account page in the ENS Manager App.
How do renewals work?
Anyone can add registration years to any existing name by paying the required fee, at any time.
There is no maximum limitation of the renewal duration but there is a minimum renewal period of 28 days.
Can someone grab my domains at the end of my subscription period?
You can renew your name at any time during the period you own it. Making sure you renew before the name expires will prevent someone else from registering the name.
There is also a 'grace period' of 90 days after your name expires. You can renew the name to retain ownership of it during the grace period.
How much will the yearly renewals cost?
Yearly renewals cost $5/year for names that are 5 characters or longer. 4 character names cost $160/year, and 3 character names cost $640/year. Fees are paid in ETH. The ETH/USD exchange rate is set by the Chainlink ETH/USD oracle.
What happens to the renewal fees? Do I get them back?
Rather than being locked and held, as in the original interim registrar, renewal fees in the permanent registrar are spent. You will not get them back.
How will ENS team manage and spend the funds? Will there be a foundation or transparent oversight?
Funds are sent to the ENS root multisig, for the keyholders to determine how funds get allocated. We're considering multiple options for the long-term use of the funds, such as funding the core ENS team, as well as other teams building on ENS. There are also tax considerations to address.
How are funds from .eth registration income used?
It's ultimately up to the keyholders to allocate the funds. We hope they will fund ENS ecosystems projects. If available funds exceed the reasonable needs of the ENS ecosystem, we hope other Ethereum projects will receive them.
Where can I manage all my ENS names?
Simply go to app.ens.domains and click on "My Account".
Can I trade ENS domains on NFT exchanges?
Yes, .eth names are tradeable as NFTs.
How can I transfer domains registered in the .eth registry to someone else?
You can do this using our Manager interface here, or using any tool with NFT support.
What prohibits large scale domain grabbing besides registration fees?
The cost of doing this is the only limitation in place.
What is the "registrant" and "controller" of a name?
The registrant is the account that owns the .eth name. They can transfer ownership to another account, and they can replace the controller address. The registrant is the owner of the NFT token that represents the name.
The controller is the account that controls day-to-day operations with the name: creating subdomains, setting the resolver and records, and so forth.