Tips & Tricks
How do I renew my domain name—can I renew it with CIRA?
As a courtesy, CIRA sends you an email notification before your registration expires, but you must renew your registration with your Registrar (the company you are registered with).
If you’re not sure who your Registrar is you can find out by using our WHOIS search.
How do I update my information in CIRA’s records?
Your Registrar is responsible for submitting changes to your Registrant Profile. Initiate the changes with your Registrar and then login to your user account on the CIRA website to approve the changes. You will need your user account number and password.
If you do not have your user account number and password, you can request them using the password retrieval tool https://registrants.cira.ca/password/forgot/en. Your user account and password will be sent to your Administrative Contact’s email address, which is listed in the CIRA WHOIS.
If you do not have access to your Administrative Contact’s email account, contact your Registrar for information on how to update information without using your user account and password.
Why didn’t my info update with CIRA?
When you update your contact information, you have to login to your user account on the CIRA website and approve the update. If you didn’t approve the update, your update request may have lapsed and the information may not have been recorded with CIRA. Be sure to follow up on update requests through your CIRA user account—if your Registrar’s website is up to date, it doesn’t mean that your CIRA profile is too!
If an update fails, ask your Registrar to reinitiate it, then login to your user account on the CIRA website to approve the update.
How do I transfer my domain name to another Registrar or another Registrant?
To transfer your domain registration to another Registrar (the company you are registered with), contact the new Registrar you’ve chosen and request a Registrar Transfer. They will submit the transfer request to our system.
Our system will automatically send an email to your Administrative Contact asking you to login to your user account on the CIRA website and approve the transfer. You will need your user account number and password.
How do I transfer my domain name to another Registrant?
To transfer your domain name to another Registrant (the person/organization who the domain name is registered to), contact your Registrar and request a Registrant Transfer. (Note that the future Registrant must have a Registrant Profile with CIRA—available through any CIRA Certified Registrar.)
Your Registrar will submit the transfer request to the CIRA systems which will automatically send an email to your Administrative Contact asking you to login to your user account on the CIRA website and approve the transfer request. You will need your user account number and password.
Once you approve the transfer, an email will automatically be sent to the future Registrant’s Administrative Contact asking them to login to their user account on the CIRA website and approve the transfer request.
Once the transfer is approved by both Registrants and acknowledged by the Registrar, the domain name will be transferred to the future Registrant.
I don’t know my user account number or password and I don’t have access to my Administrative Contact’s email account. What do I do?
If you do not have your user account number and password, you can request them using the password retrieval tool https://registrants.cira.ca/password/forgot/en.Your user account and password will be sent to your Administrative Contact’s email address, which is listed in the CIRA WHOIS.
If you do not have access to your Administrative Contact’s email account, contact your Registrar for information on how to update information without using your user account and password.
What is CIRA’s role in registration and what does my Registrar do?
CIRA is responsible for operating the dot-ca registry.
Your Registrar is responsible for submitting any changes involving your Registrant profile (transfers, updates) to the CIRA systems.
You, as the Registrant, are required to login to your user account on the CIRA website to approve or reject these changes.
I just registered a dot-ca domain name. Why isn’t my temporary password working?
The format of the password is always 4 letters followed by 6-8 numbers. Make sure you are typing it correctly.
Your temporary password expires once registration is complete and an error message will result if you try to use an expired temporary password.
Your permanent password is sent to your Administrative Contact email address. If you do not have the permanent password, use the password retrieval tool https://registrants.cira.ca/password/forgot/en to request it.
