Estate planning as a GoDaddy account holder
GoDaddy Operating Company, LLC allows accounts to transfer to the estate after death
GoDaddy is the world's largest domain registrar, with more than 80 million domain names under management. A GoDaddy account can hold domain names (real, transferable property with independent market value), web hosting, Website Builder sites, Microsoft 365 and professional email, SSL certificates, GoDaddy Payments (commerce), and DNS configurations. Domain names are among the most genuinely transferable digital assets -- they are licensed property that can be bought, sold, appraised, and inherited -- and GoDaddy publishes one of the more detailed estate-access processes in the industry.
When a GoDaddy account holder dies, their accounts can be transferred to heirs through the estate. This requires documentation including a death certificate and, in some cases, court documents.
accounts can be transferred to another person while the GoDaddy account holder is alive.
What happens at death
GoDaddy publishes a formal process for estate administrators to gain access to a deceased account holder's domains and account. Help article 8356 ("How to gain access to domains or accounts after account holder's death") states: "You must include all four of these items with your access request, or your request will not be considered." The four required items are a completed "Regain Access To My Account" form with the Estate Administrator listed as requestor, legal documentation naming the Estate Administrator (letters testamentary or letters of administration), a copy of the death certificate, and a government-issued color photo ID of the Estate Administrator showing picture, name, signature, and expiration date. For business-held accounts, a government-issued business license may be required in place of individual estate documents. The Universal Terms of Service reference "heirs, successors and assigns," providing contractual basis for estate claims. Once access is granted, the estate can manage domains, transfer them to other accounts, renew products, and close the account.
Planning your estate
Protecting GoDaddy accounts while the account is active
No beneficiary designation, lifetime transfer options for accounts, and 8-step plan.
View details →When someone dies
Handling GoDaddy accounts after a death
Accounts can be transferred to the estate, 7-step process, and 5 required documents.
View details →GoDaddy does not offer a beneficiary designation feature. Without this option, accounts cannot be assigned to a named recipient through the program's own settings.
Frequently asked questions
From your Domain Portfolio, select the domain, choose "Transfer to another GoDaddy account," enter the recipient's email address (and optionally their customer number), decide whether to copy current contact information, and send. If Domain Protection is enabled you will complete identity verification. The recipient must accept within 10 days or the transfer expires.
No. When a domain is transferred to another GoDaddy account, DNS settings are preserved with the domain but connected products such as a website, hosting, or email do not transfer. Back up website files, databases, and mailboxes before transferring, and plan to renew or re-provision hosting and email separately in the receiving account.
GoDaddy does not publish an inactivity-based account deletion policy. The account itself persists even if all products inside it expire. Individual products (domains, hosting, email) expire on their own renewal dates -- if auto-renew is off and the payment method fails, those products are deleted according to their respective timelines, but the empty account remains.
No. Domain Privacy redacts registrant contact information in public WHOIS but does not affect the estate access process. Estate Administrators submit documents through GoDaddy's account recovery form, not through WHOIS lookup, so privacy redaction does not create an obstacle. Domain Protection may add identity verification steps (SMS or authenticator codes) during post-access transfers.
Sources
Data sourced from GoDaddy Operating Company, LLC primary sources (9 pages reviewed). How we research.
