WHOIS Lookup

Look up the WHOIS record for any domain — registrar, registrant org, name servers, dates, and status — parsed into clean JSON.

Live on the Apify Store — run it instantly or call it as an agent tool via Apify MCP.

What you get

• Authoritative WHOIS via raw port-43 queries: IANA resolves the TLD's WHOIS server, then we follow the registrar referral for a rich record
• Parsed fields: registrar, registrantOrg, nameServers[], status[], dnssec
• Dates normalized to ISO 8601: createdAt, expiresAt, updatedAt
• Truncated raw WHOIS text included for anything the parser misses
• Bulk mode: pass an array of domains, capped by maxDomains
• Per-item error isolation — one bad domain never fails the run

Input

{
  "domains": ["github.com", "cloudflare.com"],
  "maxDomains": 25
}

Single domain works too:

{ "domain": "google.com" }

Output

One dataset item per domain:

{
  "domain": "google.com",
  "whoisServer": "whois.markmonitor.com",
  "registrar": "MarkMonitor Inc.",
  "createdAt": "1997-09-15T04:00:00.000Z",
  "expiresAt": "2028-09-14T04:00:00.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2024-08-02T01:21:01.000Z",
  "nameServers": ["ns1.google.com", "ns2.google.com"],
  "status": ["clientDeleteProhibited", "serverTransferProhibited"],
  "registrantOrg": "Google LLC",
  "dnssec": "unsigned",
  "raw": "Domain Name: GOOGLE.COM\n...",
  "checkedAt": "2026-06-24T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing: pay-per-event — one charge per domain checked.

Pricing

$0.002 per domain checked — 1,000 domains cost $2.00. Lowered from $0.02 on 2026-08-07; measured the same day, the category's most-used actor (agenscrape/whois-domain-lookup) charges $0.0025 per domain. maxDomains caps the run, so it is also your budget cap.

FAQ

How do I check when a domain expires? Look up the domain and read expiresAt — dates are normalized to ISO 8601, so they sort and compare cleanly in code and spreadsheets.

Does it work for every TLD? The WHOIS server is resolved through IANA per TLD, then the registrar referral is followed for the richest record. Some ccTLD registries publish limited or redacted data — whatever the parser can't map to a field is still included in the truncated raw text.

Why is the registrant's name or email missing? Privacy law (GDPR) and registrar privacy services — most registries redact personal contact data from public WHOIS. The registrant organization (registrantOrg) is still frequently present for company-owned domains.

Can I look up domains in bulk? Yes — pass an array in domains (capped by maxDomains). Per-item error isolation means one unresponsive WHOIS server never fails the rest of the run.

How is this different from a DNS lookup? DNS tells you where a domain points right now; WHOIS tells you who registered it, through which registrar, when it was created, when it expires, and what status locks it carries — the data you need for due diligence, drop-catching, and brand monitoring.

For AI agents

This Actor is built to be called by software, not just by people.

• Mount it directly as an MCP tool — no Store search, no ranking, just this one tool: https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=eliai/whois-lookup
• Or call it over HTTP and get the results in the same request: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/eliai~whois-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items
• Pay with x402, without an Apify account. This Actor is whitelisted for agentic payments, so an agent holding USDC on Base can buy a prepaid token and spend it here. The minimum purchase is $1, the token balance is an absolute spending cap, and it expires 14 days after purchase.
• Costs are predictable before you call. Pricing is pay-per-event (see Pricing above), so an agent can budget a run in advance instead of discovering the bill afterwards.
• Send only the field you mean. If you pass the bulk field, it is used on its own; the single-value field is a fallback, never merged into your request. You are charged for the items you sent and nothing else.