RDAP Domain Lookup: Expiry Dates & Registrar

Look up a list of domains over RDAP, the official, machine-readable successor of WHOIS, and get one clean row per domain: expiry, creation and last-update dates, registrar, nameservers, RDAP status values and whether DNSSEC is on. Only non-personal fields are returned: no registrant names, emails, phone numbers or addresses. Domains the registry does not know (often unregistered) and failed lookups are free.

Use cases

• Domain portfolios and agencies: see every expiry date and registrar in one table before renewals.
• SEO and marketing teams: check that client or campaign domains are registered, not expiring and not locked out.
• Security and IT teams: spot domains without DNSSEC, with unexpected nameservers or in client hold / pending delete status.
• Developers: a simple JSON API for domain facts, without parsing WHOIS text.

What it does

• Finds the right registry RDAP server for each TLD from IANA's official RDAP bootstrap file and asks it for the domain record (GET <server>/domain/<name>). If the IANA file cannot be read, it uses the public rdap.org redirector.
• Returns per domain: registered, expires, created, updated, registrar (organisation name) and registrarIanaId, nameservers, dnssecSigned, domainStatus (RDAP status values such as client transfer prohibited), unicodeName for international domains, and the rdapUrl that was asked.
• Accepts plain domains, international names (converted to punycode with IDNA 2008, so straße.de stays xn--strae-oqa.de) and URLs. Subdomains are reduced to the registered domain with the public suffix list, because registries only hold registered domains: https://www.example.com/page and blog.example.co.uk look up example.com and example.co.uk. The original text stays in input. Duplicates are looked up once.
• Looks up at most maxDomains unique domains per run (default 1,000, maximum 10,000); the rest are not looked up and not charged, and the count is in SUMMARY. For .com and .net (Verisign) the cap is 500 per run; extra .com/.net domains become free skipped rows.
• Only uses an answer that is about the domain you asked for: if the registry redirects or returns a record whose ldhName is a different domain, the row is a free mismatch row and the other domain's data is not used.

Polite by design

• Identifies itself as KelpForestLabs-RDAP with a link to our Apify profile; it never pretends to be a browser.
• Uses only the official RDAP JSON interface (RFC 9082/9083), one request at a time, with a gap between requests to the same registry server (at least 1 s, whatever delaySecs says). It does not retry when a server says it is rate limited (HTTP 429), and it stops querying that server for the rest of the run: its remaining domains become free skipped rows.
• Registry terms apply. Each registry's RDAP terms of use apply to the data; use it lawfully, not for spam, and keep lists to what you need. Some registries restrict bulk use: Verisign (.com, .net), for example, forbids using its data to enable high-volume, automated processes that query its systems, so this actor caps .com/.net at 500 domains per run and keeps at least 1 s between requests to each registry.
• Private and internal network addresses are refused on every request and redirect.

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	Price
domain (one domain whose RDAP record was found and returned)	US$0.0015

Not found and failed lookups are free: domains the registry has no record of, invalid input, TLDs without an RDAP service, rate limits, mismatched answers, domains over maxDomains or the .com/.net cap, timeouts and server errors give a free row. 1,000 found domains cost US$1.50.

Each run also has Apify's run-start charge of US$0.00005, once per run for up to 1 GB of memory plus once per extra GB (US$0.00005 at the default 256 MB), charged when the run starts. You can set a maximum charge per run in the Apify Console; the actor stops before the first domain it could not be paid for.

How to use

1. Paste your domains into Domains (one per line).
2. Run the actor and open the Domains view, or export it as CSV, Excel or JSON.
3. Open the SUMMARY record for the counts (found, not found, errors, skipped, over maxDomains).

Input example

{"domains": ["apify.com", "example.com", "iana.org"]}

Output example (test fixture, Oct 13, 2026; trimmed; rdapUrl shown as for the .com registry)

{"domain": "example.com", "status": "ok", "event": "domain", "registered": true,
 "created": "1995-08-14T04:00:00Z", "updated": "2026-08-14T07:01:39Z", "expires": "2027-08-13T04:00:00Z",
 "registrar": "Example Registrar Inc.", "registrarIanaId": "376", "nameservers": ["a.iana-servers.net", "b.iana-servers.net"],
 "dnssecSigned": true, "domainStatus": ["client delete prohibited", "client transfer prohibited"],
 "rdapUrl": "https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/example.com", "httpStatus": 200}

FAQ

Is "not found" the same as available? Usually, but not always: some registries hide reserved or blocked names. Check with a registrar before you buy.

Why is a TLD skipped? Some country-code registries do not run an RDAP service yet. Those rows are free and say so.

Why no owner or contact details? They are personal data in most cases, and most registries redact them anyway. This actor never returns them.

Limits: what this actor does not do

• It does not scrape WHOIS text (port 43) or registrar websites, and does not use proxies or captcha solving.
• It does not return personal data: no registrant, admin, tech or abuse contact names, emails, phones or addresses.
• It does not query DNS itself (nameservers and the DNSSEC flag come from the registry record), and does not check websites or SSL certificates, and does not buy or reserve domains.
• Dates and fields are what the registry publishes; some registries leave fields out.

Changelog

• 0.2 update (October 14, 2026): a redirected or mismatched RDAP answer is a free mismatch row; at least 1 s between requests to the same registry; at most 500 .com/.net domains per run.
• 0.2 (October 2026): subdomains and URLs are reduced to the registered domain; IDNA 2008 for international names; a server that rate limits is not queried again; new maxDomains input.
• 0.1 (October 2026): first version.