Unless your business is selling domains or something where you regularly transfer domains, this is not normally a process you will remember easily. Sure, the domain name registrars provide help but sometimes their help has a lot of  holes in them, leaving you to guess who gets what and who’s supposed to do what. I wrote this step-by-step checklist to help make everything clear so I can refresh my memory the next time I do this. This process is based on GoDaddy so the language and actions may differ slightly but overall procedure should be the same on any registrar. Hope it helps you too!

1. Before you do anything make sure the domain is unlocked. If buying, tell seller to unlock it for you. In total, 3 codes are needed to complete the process. Transaction ID, Security code and Authorization code.
2. Purchase a domain name transfer from your new favorite registrar. At some point in this purchase process, you will enter the domain name you wish to transfer.
3. Once purchase is complete, an email goes out to the Administrative contact of your domain which will contain a Transaction ID and a Security Code. You will need these codes. If the Admin contact is not an email you have access to, ask whoever has it to email it to you.
4. Log in to your new registrar, look for the domains pending transfer and start the process by entering the Transaction ID and Security Codes. The next step is to get and enter the Authorization code.
5. Log in to your old registrar. If you are purchasing from someone, you may not have access to this. So you need to ask the seller to go into their registrar to get the Authorization Code and send it to you.
6. Log in to your new registrar, look for pending domain transfer, continue process by entering authorization code.
7. Now you are all done. Sit back while an email is sent out to the Administrative contact of the domain to Accept the transfer. Once the transfer is accepted the process is complete.

Tips:

1. Do not change any domain contact information prior to transfer! This is super important. If you do, you won’t be able to transfer for 60 days 🙁 Remember, don’t change the email, address, name or anything. Unless of course you have more than 60 days to play with and don’t really mind waiting then change it and you can start transferring 3 months later.
2. If your registrar has a push option, it’s a lot easier to use that. Both seller and buyer may have to use the same domain registrar but you can always transfer this later to your favorite registrar. It’s much easier to transfer if you have access to both the transferer and transferee accounts.