.com WHOIS Lookup
.com is a generic domain extension operated by Verisign. Check whether a .com address is registered and see which details the record carries.
- 1.494 extensions
- IANA 1601 ICANN accredited
- 2 protocols — RDAP and WHOIS
Your IP address 216.73.216.31
.com WHOIS Lookup: The Verisign Registry Record
.com is one of the oldest entries in the root zone: IANA records its delegation on 1 January 1985, and it is operated by Verisign Global Registry Services. Queries are answered on port 43 by whois.verisign-grs.com, and the extension also has an RDAP endpoint at rdap.verisign.com. In our measurement on 12 August 2026 the port 43 reply carried fourteen distinct fields: creation, update and expiry dates, the registrar's name and IANA number, an abuse contact, name servers and status codes.
.com is a thin registry: Verisign never holds the registrant's name, address or email, so those fields are simply absent from the reply. What the registry does know is which registrar sold the name, and it says so on the Registrar WHOIS Server line. Our lookup follows that line for you; if the registrar's own server still carries registrant data you will see it, and if it does not, the reason is the redaction practice that settled in after 2018.
One detail matters when reading the expiry date: Verisign's own notice states that this field records when the registrar's sponsorship of the registration at the registry is set to end. The contract between you and your registrar can end on a different day, so base a renewal decision on the date your registrar gives you. The .net WHOIS lookup page shares this infrastructure, while .org WHOIS lookup runs on a different registry and shows how these fields shift.
About the .com extension
- Extension
- .com
- WHOIS server
- whois.verisign-grs.com
- RDAP endpoint
- https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1
- Registry
- Verisign Global Registry Services
- Delegated
- 1 January 1985
- Registry model
- Thin — registrant data sits with the registrar, not the registry
- Published fields
- Creation, update and expiry dates, registrar, IANA ID, abuse contact, name servers, status
- RDAP events
- registration, expiration, last changed
WHOIS FAQ
Why does a .com WHOIS lookup not show the owner?
Two separate reasons stack up. The first is structural: .com is a thin registry, so Verisign never holds the registrant's identity or contact data — that lives with the registrar that sold the name. The second is policy: since 2018 most registrars publish records belonging to natural persons with the personal fields redacted. The result is that the registry reply has no registrant section at all, while the registrar reply usually has one that is masked.
Does a .com WHOIS record include the registration date?
It does. The Verisign reply carries the registration date in Creation Date, the moment of the last record change in Updated Date and the end date in Registry Expiry Date. All three arrive in UTC with second-level precision. The record we sampled during the measurement showed a creation date in 1997, which means domain age can be calculated directly from WHOIS on the .com side.
What is the Registrar WHOIS Server line for?
That line names the registrar's own WHOIS server and starts the second step of the thin registry model. The registry gives you the summary; the detail lives on that other server. Our lookup tool follows the chain for you, so no separate query is needed. If the server it points to does not answer, or returns redacted data, you will see only the registry-level fields in the result.
Is the .com expiry date really the domain's last day?
Not exactly. The notice at the end of Verisign's reply states that the field records when the registrar's sponsorship of the registration at the registry is set to end. The contract between the registrar and the customer can expire on a different date, and the renewal window varies by registrar policy. Treat the date as an early warning and confirm the actual deadline in your registrar's own record.
What does an RDAP query add for .com?
RDAP returns the same record as JSON, which is far more reliable to parse than free-form text. In the 12 August 2026 measurement the .com endpoint was rdap.verisign.com and the reply carried registration, expiration and last changed events. The only role present was the registrar — so RDAP does not open registrant data at registry level either. The difference is in the format, not the scope.
What do the .com domain status codes mean?
Status codes describe which operations the name is currently closed to. The record we measured carried six at once: delete, transfer and update were each locked by both the registrar and the registry. Codes prefixed client are set by the registrar, those prefixed server by the registry. The distinction matters in practice: a registrar can lift its own lock, but it cannot lift the registry's.
What does the DNSSEC unsigned line in the output mean?
That line describes the domain you queried, not the extension: no DS record has been published for that specific name. The .com zone itself does carry a DS record in the root and is signed — we verified that separately in the measurement. So the extension supports DNSSEC; it just has not been switched on for that address. Enabling it is done through the registrar managing the name, after which the field returns as signed.
How current is a .com WHOIS result, and is it cached?
The reply comes from Verisign's live database and ends with a timestamp showing when that database was last updated. On our side, results for registered names are held for six hours and results for names that look available for five minutes. The shorter window has a simple reason: a .com name that looks free can be taken within minutes, and a stale answer leads to a wrong decision.