Why does Oh Dear show a different domain expiration date than my registrar?
Oh Dear reads the authoritative expiration date from the domain's registry via WHOIS and RDAP. That's the single source of truth for when a domain is actually valid. Your registrar's dashboard often shows a different, forward-looking date based on your auto-renewal settings or internal billing cycle, which doesn't match the public record.
So both numbers can be right at the same time, they just measure different things.
Why WHOIS lags your registrar dashboard
Most registrars don't renew a domain the moment you enable auto-renewal. They wait, sometimes until just a few days before expiry, and push the renewal to the registry then. Some only renew once they've successfully charged your card on the renewal date itself.
Until that happens, the registry (and everyone reading WHOIS/RDAP, including Oh Dear) still sees the original expiration date, so our alert is technically correct: the domain really is expiring soon according to the authoritative record.
What to do when the expiration dates do not match
- Double-check auto-renewal is actually enabled in your registrar account and that your payment method is current. Auto-renewal settings sometimes get disabled when a card expires.
- Confirm with your registrar that they'll renew before the expiration date. Ask them exactly when they push the renewal to the registry.
- If everything checks out, you can safely snooze the expiration alert until after the expected renewal date.
Once your registrar pushes the renewal, the new expiration date shows up in WHOIS/RDAP and Oh Dear will reflect it on the next domain check run (every 4 hours by default).
Why Oh Dear uses WHOIS and RDAP as the source of truth
We have no direct relationship with your registrar, and registry data is the only neutral, publicly verifiable source of truth for domain expiration. Reading auto-renewal status from a registrar's dashboard would require an integration per registrar, and those dashboards don't always match reality anyway, so we intentionally stick to what the registry reports.
More context on how this check works: domain name monitoring docs.
