How to transfer a domain away from Squarespace

Check three things first.

• No lock is active. Squarespace applies a 60-day lock to a newly purchased domain, to a domain whose registrant contact details were recently changed, and to a domain transferred in within the last 60 days.
• DNSSEC is off. Squarespace says to remove it in the advanced settings before beginning the transfer, if it was ever added.
• An account is open at the new provider.

1. Open the domains dashboard.
2. Click the domain to be transferred.
3. Switch the Domain Lock toggle off.
4. Click “Request transfer code” and confirm your identity.
5. Squarespace sends the code by email, with a subject line that begins “Auth code for”.
6. Give the code to the new provider, which starts the transfer.

Squarespace calls the code a transfer authentication code. Other providers call the same thing an EPP code, a transfer key or an auth code.

Squarespace states that the transfer does not move the site’s hosting and does not cancel the site. The Squarespace site keeps running, and keeps being billed, until the subscription is cancelled.

After the transfer, the domain’s DNS records are edited at the new provider and no longer at Squarespace. Copy every record before starting, and check them at the new provider as soon as the domain arrives.

Email depends on those records. Squarespace’s advice for a domain with Google Workspace attached is to adjust the MX records at the new provider after the transfer, so that the email service is not interrupted.

A website can move without its domain changing provider. The domain can stay registered at Squarespace and be pointed at a site hosted elsewhere. A transfer is for putting the domain and the new site under one account, or for leaving Squarespace entirely.

Moving the domain is the last step of leaving, not the first. Our guide to what a Squarespace site lets you take covers the export file, the rebuild and the redirects.