Bulk Domain Availability & WHOIS Lookup (RDAP): Expiry, Registrar, DNS

Check any list of domains in bulk and get clean JSON for each: whether the domain is registered or available, the sponsoring registrar and its IANA ID, registration and expiry dates, days to expiry, EPP status codes, nameservers and DNSSEC. The Actor uses RDAP, the structured, JSON-based successor of WHOIS that ICANN requires every gTLD registry to run, through the public rdap.org bootstrap server, which redirects each query to the registry responsible for the TLD. No API key, no browser, no WHOIS text parsing. Every row has a stable id, free rows for unsupported TLDs and errors never fail the run, and the defaults return results in a few seconds.

Use cases

• Bulk availability checks for domain investors, brand-name brainstorming and product naming (hundreds of candidate names in one run).
• Expiry monitoring for your own portfolio or your clients' domains: schedule the Actor and alert on low daysToExpiry.
• Brand protection: watch look-alike and typo domains and detect when one becomes registered, changes registrar or changes nameservers.
• Lead enrichment and due diligence: registration age, registrar and DNSSEC status for a list of company domains.
• Replace fragile WHOIS scraping in AI agents and pipelines with structured RDAP data.

Input

Field	Default	Meaning
domains	["apify.com", "example.org", "this-domain-is-surely-free-98213.com"]	Domain names to look up. URLs and host names are accepted: scheme, path, port, whitespace, www. and sub-domains are stripped down to the registrable domain (news.bbc.co.uk becomes bbc.co.uk). Internationalised names are converted to punycode. Duplicates are looked up once.
maxItems	300	Maximum number of charged rows (successful lookups). Free rows do not count. Lookups stop once the limit is reached.

Example input:

{ "domains": ["apify.com", "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news", "münchen.com", "my-new-brand-name.com", "example.de"], "maxItems": 500 }

Output

One row per unique domain. A lookup is successful (charged) when a registry RDAP server answered: either with the domain object (registered) or with 404 (not registered, i.e. available). Rows for TLDs without RDAP, invalid names and lookup errors are free.

Field	Type	Meaning
id	string	Stable key rdap:<domain>.
domain	string	Registrable domain that was queried, lower-case, punycode for IDNs.
inputDomain	string	Cleaned input before reduction to the registrable domain.
tld	string | null	Top-level domain, e.g. com.
isRegistered	boolean | null	True when the registry returned a domain object, false on a registry 404, null when unknown.
isAvailable	boolean | null	!isRegistered when an RDAP server exists for the TLD, otherwise null.
rdapAvailable	boolean | null	True when rdap.org redirected to a registry server for this TLD; false when the TLD has no RDAP service or the name is invalid; null when the request failed before that was known.
registrar	string | null	Sponsoring registrar name.
registrarIanaId	integer | null	IANA registrar ID when published (ccTLD registries often omit it).
status	string[]	EPP/RDAP status values, e.g. ["client transfer prohibited"].
nameservers	string[]	Nameserver host names, lower-case.
registrationDate	ISO 8601 | null	Registration date.
expirationDate	ISO 8601 | null	Expiry date.
lastChangedDate	ISO 8601 | null	Last change to the registration.
rdapDbUpdatedAt	ISO 8601 | null	Last update of the registry's RDAP database.
daysToExpiry	integer | null	Whole days until expirationDate; negative when past.
dnssecSigned	boolean | null	DNSSEC delegation signed, when the registry publishes it.
rdapServer	string | null	Registry RDAP host that answered, e.g. rdap.verisign.com.
error	string | null	Null on success; otherwise a short reason.
fetchedAt	ISO 8601	Time of the lookup.

Sample row:

{
  "id": "rdap:apify.com", "domain": "apify.com", "inputDomain": "apify.com", "tld": "com",
  "isRegistered": true, "isAvailable": false, "rdapAvailable": true,
  "registrar": "Amazon Registrar, Inc.", "registrarIanaId": 468, "status": ["client transfer prohibited"],
  "nameservers": ["ns-1225.awsdns-25.org", "ns-1928.awsdns-49.co.uk", "ns-449.awsdns-56.com", "ns-839.awsdns-40.net"],
  "registrationDate": "2009-06-02T17:14:10.000Z", "expirationDate": "2035-06-02T17:14:10.000Z",
  "lastChangedDate": "2026-05-16T16:53:04.000Z", "rdapDbUpdatedAt": "2026-11-03T15:17:49.000Z",
  "daysToExpiry": 3133, "dnssecSigned": true, "rdapServer": "rdap.verisign.com", "error": null,
  "fetchedAt": "2026-11-03T15:18:00.555Z"
}

An available domain looks like { "domain": "my-new-brand-name.com", "isRegistered": false, "isAvailable": true, "rdapAvailable": true, "rdapServer": "rdap.verisign.com", "error": null, ... } with the other fields null or empty. A TLD without RDAP looks like { "domain": "example.de", "isRegistered": null, "isAvailable": null, "rdapAvailable": false, "error": "No RDAP service for .de ..." }.

The run summary (counts of registered, available, no-RDAP, invalid and failed lookups, errors, request and retry counts) is stored in the OUTPUT record of the default key-value store.

How it works and limits

• RDAP vs WHOIS: WHOIS returns free-form text that differs per registry; RDAP (RFC 9082/9083) returns JSON with standard fields, so registrar, dates, status and nameservers are read without parsing heuristics. All gTLDs (.com, .net, .org, .io-style new gTLDs, ...) must run RDAP; many ccTLDs do (.uk, .kr, .fr, .nl, .ch, .br and more) but some do not (for example .de, .jp, .au, .io at the time of writing). For those the row says rdapAvailable: false and no availability claim is made.
• Each domain is one request to https://rdap.org/domain/<domain>, which redirects to the registry's RDAP server (rdapServer). A registry 404 means the name is not registered. Registrant and contact details are mostly redacted by registries since GDPR and are not returned.
• Rate: lookups run one at a time, spaced at least 700 ms apart (rdap.org allows 10 requests per 10 seconds; registries throttle too). 429 and 5xx responses are retried with backoff. 100 domains take roughly 1.5-2 minutes.
• Registries throttle and occasionally time out; such rows are free, carry an error and the run status becomes partial. Re-run the failed domains later.
• "Available" means the registry has no record for the name. Reserved, premium and registry-blocked names can still be impossible or expensive to register; verify at a registrar before buying.
• Not covered: registrant contact data, historical WHOIS, pricing, DNS record lookups (A/MX), sub-domain existence (inputs are reduced to the registrable domain) and TLDs without an RDAP server.

Pricing

Pay per result: $2.00 per 1,000 successful lookups (result event). Platform usage is billed separately by Apify. Removed/free rows are not charged.

Legal

Not affiliated with rdap.org, ICANN, Verisign or any registry. Uses the public rdap.org bootstrap service and the registries' public RDAP servers only. Data licence/terms: https://about.rdap.org/ and each registry's RDAP terms of service (for .com/.net: https://www.verisign.com/domain-names/registration-data-access-protocol/terms-service/index.xhtml). Use the data only for lawful purposes; registries forbid using it for unsolicited marketing.

FAQ

Why is a domain reported as not registered although it resolves? Make sure you passed the registrable domain of a TLD with RDAP; the Actor reduces host names (shop.example.com) to example.com, but for second-level ccTLD suffixes it only knows the common ones (co.uk, com.au, co.jp, ...). Also, some registries answer 404 for names that are blocked or reserved.

What does rdapAvailable: false mean? The rdap.org bootstrap has no RDAP server for that TLD, so neither availability nor registration data can be determined. Those rows are free. Use a WHOIS-based tool for such TLDs.

Is isAvailable: true a guarantee I can buy the domain? No. It means the registry has no registration record right now. Premium and reserved names, pending deletes and registry policies can still prevent registration; check at a registrar.

How many domains can I check in one run? As many as you like; set maxItems accordingly. At 700 ms per lookup 1,000 domains take about 12-15 minutes. Very large lists are best split into several runs to keep registries happy.

Why is registrarIanaId or expirationDate missing for some ccTLDs? ccTLD registries publish what their policy allows; for example Nominet (.uk) lists the registrar without an IANA ID, and some registries omit expiry dates. The fields are null in that case.