How to protect your GoDaddy account while you are alive

There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a GoDaddy account. An executor reaches the account through GoDaddy's Estate Administrator review process.¹

Individual domains can be transferred between GoDaddy accounts at no cost: from the Domain Portfolio, choose "Transfer to another GoDaddy account," enter the recipient's email address and optionally their customer number, and decide whether to copy the current contact information.²

The recipient must accept within 10 days or the transfer expires. A customer number entered for the recipient must match the email on that account.²

GoDaddy accounts are not transferable as a whole. A domain cannot be transferred while it is pending a contact update approval, within one day of expiration, expired or already pending a transfer, and a bundled free domain cannot transfer within 120 days of new registration.²

If Domain Protection is enabled, the sender completes identity verification by SMS code, authenticator app or one-time password. DNS settings move with the domain, but connected websites, email and hosting do not.²

A formal Change of Registrant process under the Change of Registrant Agreement is typically followed by a 60-day transfer lock, with an opt-out at the prior registrant's confirmation step.³

Both registrants have five days to confirm a change of registrant, and a new registrant has ten days to confirm a transfer request.³

Delegate Access lets an account owner grant another person management rights without transferring ownership: a delegate can manage domains and complete purchases with no password shared, but cannot transfer the account to themselves.¹

A delegate acting on the account needs Transfer Access permissions to transfer a domain.²