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About Auth-Code

An Auth-Code (also called an Authorization Code, Auth-Info Code, or transfer code) is a code created by a registrar to help identify the domain name holder (also known as a registrant or registered name holder) of a domain name in a generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated under contract with ICANN.

An Auth-Code is required for a domain holder to transfer a domain name from one registrar to another.

Registrars provide the Auth-Code to the domain name holder in one of two ways:

  1. Allow the registrant to create its own Auth-Codes through a control panel, or
  2. Provide the Auth-Code within five calendar days of a request.

ICANN has additional Auth-Code requirements for registrars found in the Transfer Policy.

If you are having problems accessing your domain name's control panel, please contact your domain name registrar.

If you cannot create your own Auth-Code through your control panel, you should contact the registrar to obtain an Auth-Code. If your registrar fails to provide you with an Auth-Code within five calendar days of your request, please submit a Transfer Complaint.

For information about the domain name, including the registrar name, conduct a WHOIS search at https://whois.icann.org. The registrar's name will be included in the result. A list of registrars and links to their websites is on the ICANN-accredited Registrar list.

Please note that ICANN does not have access to Auth-Codes and cannot create them.

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."