Is domain kiting illegal?

Not under ICANN's rules. The AGP Limits Policy is contractual: it denies refunds past set thresholds rather than defining an offense, so the penalty is financial. Laws vary by jurisdiction, and conduct carried out through kited domains, such as fraud or phishing, may be independently illegal under applicable law.

Why is it called domain kiting?

The name borrows from check kiting, a bank fraud that exploits the float between accounts to spend money that doesn't exist. Domain kiting keeps a name aloft the same way: each delete-and-re-register cycle restarts the 5-day refund window, so the registration fee is always clawed back.

Can I cancel a new domain registration and get a refund?

Sometimes. The Add Grace Period is a registry-to-registrar credit, and whether that refund reaches you varies by registrar and TLD. If you've misspelled or misregistered a name, check your registrar's cancellation policy right away; the window closes 5 days after registration.

Back to Domains Glossary

What is Domain Kiting?

Domain kiting is the repeated registration and deletion of a domain name during the 5-day Add Grace Period. Each deletion once let a registrar recover the registration fee from the registry before re-registering the name, so the registrar controlled the domain at little or no cost. ICANN’s refund limits made large-scale kiting uneconomical in 2009.

More About Domain Kiting

Domain kiting is an abuse of registry policy rather than a crime in itself, though the throwaway domains it produced were often used for phishing and spam.

The practice peaked in 2007 and 2008 and was effectively dead by mid-2009, when ICANN's refund limits made it unprofitable. It still matters as domain history: kiting, together with domain tasting, is the reason the 5-day grace period on new registrations now carries refund limits.

How domain kiting works

The scheme runs on the Add Grace Period (AGP), a 5-day grace period that follows a domain's initial registration in some, but not all, gTLD registries. During that window, a registrar can delete a new registration and receive a full credit for the registration fee from the registry. That credit goes to the registrar, not to the customer who bought the name, and the deleted domain becomes available for registration again immediately. ICANN intended the AGP as a no-cost way to cancel typos and other registration mistakes. Kiting turns it into a loop:

A circular flow showing the domain kiting loop: a registrar registers a domain, deletes it within the Add Grace Period, receives the registration fee back from the registry, and immediately re-registers the same name, restarting the cycle so the domain stays controlled without the fee ever being paid.

Register a domain name.
Delete it before the 5-day AGP expires, so the registry credits the registration fee back to the registrar.
Re-register the same name the moment it drops, starting a fresh 5-day window.
Repeat indefinitely. The name stays registered almost continuously, and the registration fee is never truly paid.

A kiter never owns the name outright. Each deletion makes the domain instantly available to anyone, so a kiter who fails to re-register in time loses it to whoever grabs it first.

Domain kiting vs. domain tasting

The two practices abuse the same 5-day window, but they aren't the same thing:

Domain tasting registers a name once to test it. The taster checks whether ads on the parked page will out-earn the registration fee (typically between $6 and $7 at the time, per ICANN's 2009 report), then keeps the name or cancels it for a refund.
Domain kiting deletes the name inside the grace period and immediately re-registers it, repeating the cycle so the fee is always refunded and the name is never paid for.

Canceling a misspelled registration inside the grace period is neither one. That's exactly what the AGP was designed for.

Why domain kiting stopped working

ICANN closed the loophole in two steps. Its fiscal-year 2009 budget applied the per-domain ICANN transaction fee to excess grace-period deletes, which cut monthly deletes from a peak above 15 million domains to around 2 million. The AGP Limits Policy, which registries had to implement by March 31, 2009, went further: registries now refuse refunds for a registrar's AGP deletions above 10% of its net new monthly registrations or 50 domains, whichever is greater, unless the registrar documents extraordinary circumstances.

ICANN's August 2009 report measured the result: a 99.7% drop in AGP deletes between June 2008 and April 2009 across the registries that implemented the policy, with monthly deletes falling below 60,000. Mass kiting has been uneconomical ever since. These figures cover generic TLDs like .com; ICANN doesn't set policy for country-code TLDs, which follow their own rules.

The 5-day window itself still exists for its original purpose. If you register the wrong name, act fast: ask your registrar about canceling within the first 5 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

: Not under ICANN's rules. The AGP Limits Policy is contractual: it denies refunds past set thresholds rather than defining an offense, so the penalty is financial. Laws vary by jurisdiction, and conduct carried out through kited domains, such as fraud or phishing, may be independently illegal under applicable law.
: The name borrows from check kiting, a bank fraud that exploits the float between accounts to spend money that doesn't exist. Domain kiting keeps a name aloft the same way: each delete-and-re-register cycle restarts the 5-day refund window, so the registration fee is always clawed back.
: Sometimes. The Add Grace Period is a registry-to-registrar credit, and whether that refund reaches you varies by registrar and TLD. If you've misspelled or misregistered a name, check your registrar's cancellation policy right away; the window closes 5 days after registration.

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