Transfer a Domain from Gandi to Cloudflare

Since Gandi's acquisition and the price hikes that followed, moving to Cloudflare — which sells domains at registry cost — is the highest-ROI cleanup you can do on a domain portfolio. Here is the complete method: zero downtime, and nothing to pay before your renewal date.

The principle: never pay for a transfer "on top"

A little-known ICANN rule makes transfers effectively free in practice: the year you pay at transfer time is added to your current expiration date. Transferring 30 days before expiry is therefore exactly the same as renewing — but at Cloudflare's at-cost price (zero markup) instead of Gandi's retail price. You don't lose a single day you already paid for.

Step 1 — Move your DNS first (free, today)

Domain registration and DNS management are independent. Start by creating the zone on Cloudflare (Free plan), verify every record was imported — especially MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC if the domain receives email — then replace the nameservers at Gandi with the two Cloudflare assigns you. Your site and email keep working: during propagation, the old and new zones serve identical answers.

Step 2 — Prepare the transfer on the Gandi side

In the Gandi interface: domain page → "Transfer out of Gandi". Two actions: unlock the domain (remove the transfer lock) and grab the authorization code (EPP code). Also disable auto-renew (domain page → renewal), or Gandi will charge you before the transfer completes.

Gandi-specific trap: if your domains belong to an organization (common — Gandi sometimes creates one automatically), make sure you act on the right entity; API tokens must be created for that organization too.

Step 3 — Start the transfer at Cloudflare at day −30

In the Cloudflare dashboard: Domain Registration → Transfer domains. Domains whose DNS already points at Cloudflare show up automatically (it's a requirement of the service). Enter the auth code, pay one year at wholesale (~$10–11 for a .com versus ~$20 at Gandi), then approve the outbound transfer on the Gandi side to finish in hours instead of 5 days.

Frequently asked questions