WHOIS & Domain Availability MCP Server (RDAP)

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI agents and MCP clients such as Claude Desktop and Cursor live WHOIS-style domain data: registrar, creation / expiry / last-updated dates, days until expiry, nameservers, DNSSEC, status codes, abuse contact, and whether a domain is likely available to register. Data comes from the official RDAP registries through the IANA bootstrap, not scraped WHOIS sites.

MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants call external tools. This Actor runs in Apify Standby mode, so it answers tool calls over HTTP within moments and you pay only per domain looked up.

Connect

Easiest: through Apify's hosted MCP server, no token to paste. Add this URL as a remote MCP server (custom connector) in your client. It signs you in to Apify with OAuth and exposes the same three tools:

https://mcp.apify.com?actors=wintersworks/domain-whois-mcp-server

Direct endpoint (Streamable HTTP, stateless), if you prefer a Bearer token:

https://wintersworks--domain-whois-mcp-server.apify.actor/mcp

Authenticate with your Apify API token as a Bearer header: Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>.

Claude Desktop / Cursor / most MCP clients (mcpServers config, using the mcp-remote bridge for clients without native HTTP support):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "domain-whois": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://wintersworks--domain-whois-mcp-server.apify.actor/mcp",
               "--header", "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>"]
    }
  }
}

Clients with native Streamable HTTP support (Cursor, Claude Code and others) can use the URL plus the Authorization header directly, for example claude mcp add --transport http domain-whois https://wintersworks--domain-whois-mcp-server.apify.actor/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>".

Tools

• lookup_domain { domain, checkDns? } returns the full record for one domain: registrar, createdDate, expiryDate, updatedDate, daysUntilExpiry, nameservers, dnssec, statusCodes, registrantOrg, registrantCountry, abuseEmail, available, status.
• lookup_domains { domains[], checkDns? } the same for up to 50 domains in one call.
• check_availability { domains[] } returns [{ domain, available, status }] for up to 50 domains.

Inputs can be plain domains or URLs (https://www.shop.example.co.uk/page becomes example.co.uk). With checkDns you also get hasA, hasMx, mxRecords, dnsNameservers, hasSpf. Results come back as JSON text and as structured content.

Example lookup_domain result (shortened):

{ "domain": "apify.com", "status": "registered", "available": false, "registrar": "Amazon Registrar, Inc.",
  "expiryDate": "2035-06-02T17:14:10Z", "daysUntilExpiry": 3156, "dnssec": true, "rdapServer": "https://rdap.verisign.com" }

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.002 per domain looked up ($2.00 per 1,000). Failed lookups (registry unreachable, unsupported TLD) are free, and duplicates inside one call are only counted once. If the run's spending limit is reached, the tool result says so and no further lookups are made.

Use cases

• Let an assistant check whether a batch of brand or name ideas is free to register.
• Domain expiry monitoring inside an agent workflow.
• Due diligence and lead enrichment: registrar, domain age, nameserver and hosting hints.

Normal (non-Standby) runs

If you start the Actor as a regular run instead, it looks up the domains from the input (default example.com), stores one record per domain in the dataset, and exits. This is handy for testing; the main use is Standby mode.

Limitations

• Data comes from registry RDAP servers listed in the IANA bootstrap (data.iana.org/rdap/dns.json). Some ccTLDs have no RDAP service and return an error (not charged).
• Registrant personal details are mostly redacted under GDPR and come back null. Registrant organization, country and abuse email appear only if the registry publishes them.
• "Available" means the registry answered 404 (not registered). It can still be reserved, premium or restricted, so confirm with a registrar.
• Requests to each RDAP server are paced (300 ms), retried with backoff on 429/5xx, and time out after 20 s. Public RDAP servers can still rate-limit large batches.

FAQ

Is this legal? It queries the official, public RDAP service that registries run for this purpose, not WHOIS websites or port 43. It only returns data the registry publishes, and redacted fields stay null. Use the results in line with data-protection and anti-spam law. You are responsible for how you use them.

Why is the registrant empty? Since GDPR most registries and registrars redact personal registrant data. The server returns null rather than guessing.

Which TLDs work? Every TLD in the IANA RDAP bootstrap (about 1,200).

Do you store my queries? The server keeps no session state between calls. Normal Apify run logs apply.

About

Made by Winters Works. Also see our Bulk WHOIS Lookup & Domain Expiry Checker Actor for large batch exports to CSV or Excel.