How to Transfer a Domain Away From Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, Shopify or Weebly

You don't have to transfer a domain's registration just because you're changing website builders — you only need to if you want to stop paying and managing it through the old builder entirely. If you're fine keeping the domain registered where it is, you just change its DNS records to point at your new site, which is faster, has no lock periods, and doesn't touch billing. A full transfer moves the registration itself to a new registrar. Both get your new site working on your domain; they solve different problems.

Should I transfer the registration or just repoint DNS?

Ask this first: do you want to keep paying this company for the domain?

• If yes — you're happy with the registrar, just moving the site — leave the domain where it is and change only the records that point to your website (an A record or CNAME for the root and www). No authorization code, no lock period, no waiting on a second company. Our email and DNS guide covers exactly which records to touch and which to leave alone so mail keeps working.
• If no — you want the domain itself somewhere else, usually because you're leaving the builder's ecosystem entirely — you need an actual transfer: an authorization code, an unlocked domain, and a receiving registrar to accept it.

A domain you bought somewhere other than your website builder (Namecheap, Cloudflare, a different registrar) was never registered with the builder in the first place. In that case there's no transfer to do regardless of which option you want — you just change DNS at the place you actually registered it.

What do all five builders have in common?

Every registrar-level transfer below follows the same shape, because it's the same underlying ICANN process everywhere: get an authorization code (also called an EPP code or transfer key), unlock the domain, hand the code to your new registrar, and wait. ICANN's transfer policy is also where the recurring 60-day locks come from — none of the five builders invented that rule, and none can waive it.

How do I transfer a domain away from Squarespace?

Where the code is: emailed to you. Toggle Domain Lock off in the domains dashboard, click Request transfer code, confirm with your password or 2FA, then Squarespace sends an email from no-reply@squarespace.com titled "Auth code for [yourdomain.com]" — it should arrive within 24 hours (Squarespace).

Locks: a 60-day lock applies to newly registered domains, domains recently transferred into Squarespace, and domains with recently changed contact information.

How long: "The transfer process can take up to 15 days to complete," per Squarespace's own guide.

Email and your old site: Squarespace states this directly — "Transferring your Squarespace domain doesn't move your site hosting to your new provider or cancel your current Squarespace site. If you're leaving all Squarespace services, cancel your website subscription after transferring your domain." Two separate cancellations, not one. Squarespace also warns that "most domain hosts can't keep your settings in place during a transfer," so record every DNS record before you start and recreate them at the new provider, including Google Workspace MX records if you use them.

How do I transfer a domain away from Wix?

Where the code is: emailed to your registrant contact address. Go to Domains, click the domain's Domain Actions icon, select Transfer away from Wix, confirm you want to proceed, and Wix sends the EPP code (Wix).

Locks: the same ICANN 60-day rule — recent purchase, a recent contact-info change, or a domain that already transferred once in the last 60 days will all block a new transfer. Wix's guide notes plainly: "Your domain must be unlocked before you begin the transfer."

How long: "A domain transfer usually takes up to 7 days to complete."

Email and your old site: Wix is explicit that the site itself disconnects: "If you transfer your domain away, your Wix site is disconnected, and Wix is no longer able to assist with managing your domain." Business email breaks too, until you rebuild it: asked directly whether business email survives, Wix's own FAQ says "No. You need to add the MX records again after the transfer in order for the business email to work."

How do I transfer a domain away from GoDaddy?

Where the code is: shown during the transfer flow itself. From your Domain Portfolio, select the domain, choose Transfer to Another Registrar, and after confirming you can select Click here to see Authorization Code — GoDaddy also emails it to the registrant address on file (GoDaddy).

Locks: the standard 60-day window after registration, a transfer, or a contact-info change (only where the registrant opted into the 60-day lock when approving the change); domains bought as part of a bundle carry a 120-day restriction instead.

How long: "Transfers typically take 5-7 days to complete."

Manual prep, if you're not using GoDaddy's guided checklist: unlock the domain, turn off Domain Privacy, and fully downgrade Domain Protection to none — GoDaddy's guide lists these as the three manual steps if you skip its automated transfer checklist.

Email and your old site: GoDaddy's transfer article doesn't address email or a website subscription — domain registration and a GoDaddy Websites + Marketing plan are billed as separate products, so expect to manage and cancel each independently, the same as Squarespace's explicit split above.

How do I transfer a domain away from Shopify?

Where the code is: on the domain's information page inside Shopify admin, once you start the transfer from Settings → Domains (Shopify). Unlike the others, Shopify's domain unlocks automatically the moment you start the process — no separate unlock toggle to find first.

Locks: you must wait 60 days after purchasing the domain, transferring it into Shopify, or changing its contact information before it's eligible to leave.

How long: "up to 7 days for a successful transfer to complete." If the transfer isn't finished within 30 days of starting, Shopify re-locks the domain and you have to start again.

Email and your old site: Shopify's transfer documentation doesn't cover what happens to email or your store subscription when you leave Shopify entirely — as with GoDaddy, treat your Shopify plan and the domain as separate line items that need separate decisions.

How do I transfer a domain away from Weebly?

Where the code is: in your Weebly Dashboard, go to Websites → Domains → Manage → Manage Domain, then switch off the Registrar Lock toggle. Per Weebly's own help page, "After disabling the registrar lock you'll see the EPP authorization code below" — copy the full code; re-enabling the lock hides it again.

Locks: the same ICANN 60-day rule after registration or a contact-info change. Country-code domains (.co.uk, .de and similar) don't go through the self-service flow at all — Weebly says to contact its support team directly for those.

How long: Weebly's own page doesn't publish an expected transfer duration; the receiving registrar's process governs from the point you hand over the code.

Email and your old site: disabling Registrar Lock also disables Whois privacy — you'll need to re-enable privacy at the new registrar. Weebly's own guidance notes you can transfer the registration while still hosting the site with Weebly, or the reverse: keep the domain registered with Weebly and point it at a different host. If your Weebly site is in one of the countries affected by the September 2026 shutdown, that flexibility has a hard deadline: account login, which is what you'd use to unlock the domain at all, ends December 26, 2026 — the full domain timeline is here if that applies to you.

What if the transfer stalls or fails?

A stuck or failed transfer just means the domain stays where it was; you haven't lost it. The riskier moment is a transfer that succeeds: if the old builder was also hosting your DNS, those records may not come with the registration, and the site and email can stop resolving until you recreate them at the new provider. That's why the checklist below starts with recording every DNS record. If a transfer is rejected, the usual causes are a still-locked domain, an expired or mistyped authorization code, or a 60-day restriction you didn't know applied; fix the cause rather than re-requesting the same code repeatedly. Once a transfer does complete, immediately re-check your MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records at whichever DNS host now controls the zone — our email guide covers what those records do and how to verify them without guessing.

What should I check before starting any transfer?

• Decide: full registration transfer, or just repoint DNS and keep the registrar?
• Record every DNS record (A, CNAME, MX, TXT) at the current provider, so you can recreate them if they don't carry over.
• Confirm the domain isn't inside a 60-day lock window (recent purchase, recent transfer-in, or a recent contact-info change).
• Turn off any registrar lock and retrieve the authorization/EPP code from the location listed above.
• Re-enable Whois privacy at the new registrar once the code has been used, since unlocking often disables it.
• Confirm what happens to email separately — a transfer breaking MX records is common (Wix says so outright) and easy to fix if you expect it.
• Decide, on GoDaddy or Shopify specifically, whether you're also canceling the website subscription — the domain transfer alone won't do that for you.
• Keep the old account open until the new registrar confirms the transfer is complete.

Bottom line: transferring a domain's registration and moving your website are two different jobs, and most people only need one of them. Every builder's transfer follows the same authorization-code-plus-unlock pattern underneath, with the same ICANN 60-day locks; where they differ is where the code lives and what, if anything, breaks automatically once you leave — Wix's disconnected site and broken email being the most immediate example of the second.