# Bulk Domain Availability Checker + WHOIS (RDAP) Lookup (`bridgeworks/domain-checker`) Actor

Check thousands of domains at once: available or registered, plus registrar, creation and expiry dates, days until expiry, and nameservers. Check a name across many TLDs, or find domains expiring soon. Uses official RDAP, the modern WHOIS. Free.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/bridgeworks/domain-checker.md
- **Developed by:** [Bridgeworks](https://apify.com/bridgeworks) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, SEO tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Bulk Domain Availability Checker + WHOIS (RDAP) Lookup

Check whether domains are available or registered, in bulk, and get the registration details for the ones that are taken: registrar, creation date, expiry date, days until expiry, nameservers, and registry status codes. Free to use: you only pay Apify's small platform usage for the run.

It uses **RDAP**, the official replacement for WHOIS that registries now publish. That means structured data straight from the registry, no scraping of WHOIS text, and fewer rate-limit headaches than port-43 WHOIS lookups.

### What you can do with it

- **Check a brand name across TLDs.** Give names like `acme` and TLDs like `com, io, ai, dev, co`, and see every combination at once.
- **Bulk domain availability check.** Paste hundreds or thousands of domains (plain domains or full URLs) and get available vs registered for each.
- **Bulk WHOIS lookup.** For registered domains, get registrar, created and expiry dates, and nameservers in one table you can export to CSV, Excel, or JSON.
- **Find domains expiring soon.** Set "Only return domains expiring within N days" to build a list of drops or to audit your own portfolio's renewals.

### Output

| Field | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `domain` | Normalized domain (punycode for international names) |
| `status` | `available`, `registered`, `likely-available`, or `unknown` |
| `method` | `rdap` (authoritative) or `dns` (fallback, see below) |
| `registrar` | Registrar name |
| `createdAt`, `expiresAt`, `updatedAt` | Registry event dates |
| `daysUntilExpiry` | Whole days until the expiry date |
| `nameservers` | Delegated nameservers |
| `statusCodes` | EPP status codes such as `client transfer prohibited` |

### How accurate is it?

For TLDs that publish RDAP (including .com, .net, .org, .dev, .ai and hundreds more), the answer comes from the registry itself: a registered domain returns its record, an unregistered one returns "not found". Some TLDs, such as .io, do not run an RDAP server. For those the Actor falls back to DNS and says so: `method: dns`, with `status: likely-available` and `confidence: low` when no delegation exists. A domain can be registered but not delegated, so confirm those at a registrar before you rely on them. Premium and reserved names can show as available here while a registrar still refuses or up-prices them.

If a registry rate-limits or times out after retries, the domain is reported as `unknown` with the reason, never guessed.

### Try it

Press Start with no input. The run checks a small sample (two names across three TLDs, plus a well-known domain) so you can see the output shape in a few seconds.

### FAQ

**Is this a WHOIS lookup?**
Yes, in the modern form. RDAP carries the same registration data as WHOIS, in structured JSON, and is what ICANN now requires registries and registrars to provide.

**How many domains per run?**
Up to 5,000. Registries rate-limit, so large runs are paced; very large lists finish faster split across a few runs.

**Can AI agents call it?**
Yes, through Apify's MCP server, and the dataset is machine-readable.

***

### More from Bridgeworks

We build small, dependable data tools for automations and AI agents: free demo runs, plain-English errors, honest pricing.

- **[Google Sheets Import & Export](https://apify.com/bridgeworks/sheets-bridge)**: push any Apify dataset into Google Sheets with service-account auth, so nothing expires mid-schedule.
- **[AI Brand Visibility Tracker](https://apify.com/bridgeworks/ai-answer-watch)**: track what ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity say about your brand.
- **[Greenhouse, Lever & Ashby Job Monitor](https://apify.com/bridgeworks/ats-job-monitor)**: get events when a company adds, changes, or closes a job.

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Domains to check, one per line. URLs are fine too (https://www.example.com/page becomes example.com).

## `names` (type: `array`):

Brand or project names without a TLD, e.g. "acme". Each is checked against every TLD below.

## `tlds` (type: `array`):

TLDs to combine with the names above, e.g. com, io, ai, dev, co. Defaults to com.

## `expiringWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Optional. Keep only registered domains whose expiry date is within this many days.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Parallel lookups. Registries rate-limit, so higher is not always faster.

## `maxDomains` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "tlds": [
    "com",
    "io",
    "ai",
    "dev",
    "co"
  ],
  "concurrency": 5,
  "maxDomains": 5000
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `domains` (type: `string`):

One item per domain: status, registrar, dates, nameservers.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Counts of available, registered, and unknown domains.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "tlds": [
        "com",
        "io",
        "ai",
        "dev",
        "co"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("bridgeworks/domain-checker").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "tlds": [
        "com",
        "io",
        "ai",
        "dev",
        "co",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("bridgeworks/domain-checker").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "tlds": [
    "com",
    "io",
    "ai",
    "dev",
    "co"
  ]
}' |
apify call bridgeworks/domain-checker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,bridgeworks/domain-checker"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Xvkc32FQc80SJ3JEP/builds/G0hKauSVleDvesVZL/openapi.json