WHOIS vs RDAP: What Changed in 2025 and What Domain Owners Should Know

WHOIS Is Gone for gTLDs: What ICANN Changed on January 28, 2025

If you have ever looked up who owns a domain name, you have used WHOIS, or at least a tool built on top of it. For decades, WHOIS was the internet's public directory for domain registration data. Type in a domain name, get back the owner's name, contact details, registration dates, and nameservers. Simple, open, and universal.

That era is over for generic top-level domains.

As confirmed in ICANN's official announcement, on January 28, 2025, ICANN is officially sunsetting WHOIS for some gTLDs. Registries and registrars are no longer contractually required to maintain WHOIS protocol. RDAP, the Registration Data Access Protocol, is now the required standard.

This was not a soft transition or a grace period. The change is in effect. If you manage domains under .COM, .NET, .ORG, .IO, or other generic extensions, the protocol that serves your domain lookup data has changed. What has not fully caught up yet is how domain owners (particularly investors) have adjusted their workflows to match.

 

WHOIS vs RDAP: What's Actually Different Between the Two Protocols

To understand why ICANN replaced WHOIS with RDAP, it helps to understand what WHOIS actually was, and where it broke down.

WHOIS was a query-and-response protocol developed in the early days of the internet. It ran over an unencrypted TCP connection on port 43. That was an open channel where anyone could send a request and receive a plain-text response. There were no login requirements, no access controls, and no standard data format. Every registrar returned results in their own way, which made automated processing inconsistent and unreliable.

RDAP was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) specifically to fix these problems. It is a modern, web-native protocol that works like any secure website: requests go out over HTTPS, responses come back in structured JSON format. JSON format is a standardized format that machines (and people) can read reliably.

Here is what that means in practice:

• Structured output

  RDAP responses use consistent field names across all registrars and registries. Whether you are looking up a domain at one registrar or another, the data comes back in the same format. No more parsing inconsistencies. RDAP uses JSON file and data interchangeable content for better readability and integration.

• Tiered access

  RDAP doesn't automatically make more domain details visible. It actually supports differentiated or tiered access to the data. What actually changes is that information can be delivered differently based on the requester's authorization level. For anonymous users who use general public lookups, only a limited set of publicly available data is visible. On the other hand, authenticated or authorized users (IP bodies and law enforcement) may receive more complete details when permitted by applicable policies.

• HTTPS by default

  Every RDAP query is encrypted in transit. With WHOIS, your query and the response traveled in plain text, visible to anyone on the network path. One more important thing with RDAP is that it enforces encryption, requiring HTTPS for all communication. This is to ensure that the data transmitted between the client and server is protected from eavesdropping.

The practical difference: RDAP is more reliable, more secure, and more privacy-aware by design. The trade-off is that some data previously accessible through a WHOIS lookup is now gated behind access controls.

 

What a Domain Lookup Returns Today (and Why Some Fields Are Still Redacted)

When you run an RDAP lookup on a gTLD today, here is what a standard public query typically returns:

• Registrant name and email (if domain isn't private)
• Domain status codes (such as clientTransferProhibited)
• Nameservers
• Domain registration date and expiration date
• Last updated timestamp
• Registrar name

What you will not see, in most cases, is registrant contact information: the name, email address, phone number, and mailing address of the person or company that registered the domain.

This surprises some users, but it is not an RDAP issue. Registrant data has been redacted for most domains since GDPR enforcement began in 2018, regardless of protocol. RDAP did not remove that data, it just changed the mechanism through which access to it is controlled. Under ICANN's Registration Data Policy, contact details for individual registrants are hidden from public queries and only available to parties with a legitimate, verified reason to access them.

If a field in your lookup shows "redacted for privacy," the data exists in the registry's records. It is not publicly accessible through a standard query, but it can be requested through a formal process (covered below).

 

WHOIS Isn't Fully Dead: The ccTLD Exception Domain Investors Need to Know

Here is where most explanations of the WHOIS-to-RDAP transition get it wrong: WHOIS is gone for most of the gTLDs, but it is still actively used for the majority of country-code TLDs, and if you manage a mixed portfolio, this distinction matters.

ICANN's authority and policy mandates apply to gTLDs, the generic extensions like .COM, .NET, .ORG, and new gTLDs like .APP, .SHOP, and .DEV. Country-code TLDs.

The majority of ccTLD and some gTLDs registries still serve WHOIS responses on port 43.

.DE domain, for example, continues to use the WHOIS protocol. So for most ccTLDs, you're still querying WHOIS, and the data format, privacy rules, and tooling are determined by each individual registry, which varies considerably.

You can check the deployment of RDAP per TLD and filter TLD type on this map here.

 

How RDAP Affects Domain Investors and Multi-Domain Registrants?

The common response to the WHOIS-to-RDAP transition is "you don't need to do anything." That is true if you own a single domain and never look up registration data. It is not true if you manage a portfolio and would like to expand it, run due diligence on acquisitions, or use automated tools for domain research.

Not every tool has been updated. Some older WHOIS clients have added RDAP support; others have not.

Acquisition due diligence looks different. Suppose you're evaluating a domain for purchase and run a lookup to confirm current ownership and reachability. Under RDAP, a standard public query confirms the technical facts (registration dates, registrar, nameservers, status codes) but registrant identity is typically redacted. You will not surface owner contact information directly through a public RDAP lookup. For acquisition work, that means contacting the registrar directly or submitting a formal RDRS request (covered below).

 

How to Run an RDAP Lookup and Access Redacted Data

 

How to Use RDAP: Running a Lookup Today

Running an RDAP lookup is straightforward. You do not need any special software for most use cases.

Running an RDAP lookup is straightforward. You do not need any special software for most use cases. The fastest starting point is ICANN's official lookup tool. It queries RDAP by default, requires no account, and returns structured results for any gTLD. This is the most direct way to see what an RDAP response looks like for any given domain.

If you manage domains through Dynadot, registration data is surfaced directly in your domain manager, no separate lookup tool required.

 

How to Request Redacted Registration Data via RDRS

When you need contact information that a public RDAP lookup will not return, for purposes like reporting domain abuse, pursuing trademark enforcement, or initiating a domain acquisition: ICANN's Registration Data Request Service (RDRS) is the formal channel for making that request.

RDRS is a centralized portal where you can submit a request to participating registrars for non-public gTLD registration data. It does not guarantee access, each registrar evaluates requests according to their own disclosure policies, and the system is still expanding in terms of registrar participation.

Treat it as a structured, documented process rather than a guaranteed result. To submit a request:

1. Go to ICANN's RDRS portal at rdrs.icann.org, do a domain search and check if the data you're looking for is already available
2. Identify the sponsoring registrar for the domain, this is visible in the RDAP response
3. Submit your request with a clearly stated purpose and your contact details
4. The registrar reviews the request and responds based on their disclosure policy. If the registrar for the domain you are researching does not yet participate in RDRS, contact them directly to ask about their process for non-public data disclosure.

 

The Bottom Line: WHOIS Is Out, RDAP Is In, But It's Not That Simple

• RDAP is now becoming the required standard for all gTLD domain lookups, replacing a 43-year-old Whois protocol.
• RDAP delivers much more structured and consistent data, where every lookup returns the same fields in the same format, no matter which registry or registrar you query.
• RDAP introduces enhanced security and controlled access, all queries run over HTTPS, and what you see depends on your authorization level, reducing the risk of unauthorized data harvesting.
• RDAP supports differentiated access levels, the general public sees a baseline of redacted data, while authenticated parties such as law enforcement and IP enforcement bodies can access more complete records through proper channels.
• WHOIS is not entirely gone, it still operates for most ccTLDs, some gTLDs, and registrars, so if your portfolio includes country-code domains, your lookup workflow there has not changed yet.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is RDAP replacing WHOIS?

Yes, for most of the gTLDs, RDAP has already replaced WHOIS, but most of the registrars are still using Whois. As of January 28, 2025, ICANN no longer requires registries and registrars to maintain WHOIS services for generic top-level domains like .COM, .NET, and .ORG. RDAP is the required protocol going forward. For country-code ccTLDs, the picture is different, most ccTLD registries and registrars still use WHOIS.

 

How to Use RDAP?

Using RDAP does not require any technical setup for most domain owners. The easiest starting point is ICANN's official RDAP lookup tool at lookup.icann.org, simply enter a domain name and it returns structured registration data instantly, no account required.