How to protect your Namecheap domains while you are alive

There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Namecheap account; the Terms state that a customer's rights under the agreement are not assignable or transferable.¹

Change Ownership, in a domain's Sharing & Transfer tab, moves the domain to another Namecheap account: the sender enters the recipient's username or email address and authorizes with the account password. It is free, needs no 60-day wait, and is final once accepted.²

The recipient's invitation link stays active for 7 days, or the domain moves right away if the recipient has "Automatically Accept Invitations" enabled. An expired domain cannot be pushed until it is renewed, and a Namecheap Marketplace listing has to be delisted first.²

A recipient who has no Namecheap account yet can still be sent the invitation by email and creates an account when accepting.³

A domain can also be transferred to another registrar with an auth code, but the Registration Agreement bars a transfer within 60 calendar days of initial registration or of a previous transfer.⁴

Registry Lock, through Domain Vault, blocks nameserver changes, deletion and transfer out, though not contact or host-record updates. Removing it requires extra authentication between the customer, Namecheap and the registry.^{5, 6}

Share Access names another user as a manager on a domain, but a domain cannot be pushed to someone who is currently its manager.²

Namecheap has no family-sharing or sub-account system.¹

Namecheap sends expiration reminders 30, 15, 7 and 1 days before and on the expiration date, to both the account primary email address and the domain registrant email address.⁷

A domain locked through Domain Vault is auto-renewed at registry level to prevent unwanted deletion.^{5, 6}