No nameservers are attached, so the domain does not resolve.
inactive means the registry has no delegation (nameserver) information for the domain. It is the starting state of a newly created domain that has no hosts yet, and the registry also sets it when every nameserver association is removed.
- EPP code
- inactive
- In RDAP
- inactive
- Set by
- The registry (server status)
- Defined in
- RFC 5731 §2.3
- How serious
- Check this
Why it matters
Without nameservers, nothing under the domain resolves: no website, no email, no DMARC record, nothing.
When you’d see it
You registered a name for a future project and never set nameservers, or you removed them while switching DNS hosts. Lookups show inactive, every query for the domain fails, and any email setup you did at the new host is invisible until the delegation is in place.
How it shows up in a lookup
In a gTLD WHOIS lookup it appears as “Domain Status: inactive https://icann.org/epp#inactive”; RDAP shows it as “inactive”. It is managed by the registry as a result of an operation (RFC 5731 §2.3), not a setting you or your registrar toggle directly.
What to do
Set nameservers at your registrar (your DNS host shows which ones to use). If it stays inactive for days after you did, or the TLD needs documents before activation, ask the registrar what is outstanding.
Related codes
Sources
Sources
- RFC 5731 §2.3 (EPP Domain Name Mapping) · checked 5 Oct 2026
- ICANN: EPP Status Codes, What do they mean, and why should I know? · checked 5 Oct 2026
- RFC 8056: EPP and RDAP status mapping · checked 5 Oct 2026