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Transfer your domain registration from Bluehost to GoDaddy

A registrar transfer changes which company holds the registration and bills you for it. It does not move your website, your files, your email or your DNS records. Your site stays exactly where it is throughout.

The process is standardised by ICANN, so it is the same shape at every registrar: unlock, get an auth code, start the transfer at the gaining registrar, approve it. What varies is where the buttons live and how long each company takes to send the code.

The one thing you cannot work around is the 60-day rule. Domains cannot transfer within 60 days of registration, of a previous transfer, or of a change to the registrant contact details. That last one catches people out — updating your own email address to receive the auth code can lock the domain for two months.

Hands-on time
20 minutes of work
Start to finish
5–7 days, or 1–2 days if you approve promptly
Difficulty
Easy
Steps
8

Downtime risk: None if nameservers are left alone. The transfer preserves your existing DNS delegation.

Check this first

Are your nameservers still pointing at Bluehost?

Worth checking before you transfer, because it changes what happens next. A registrar transfer moves the registration but not the DNS service — so if your nameservers are ns1/ns2.bluehost.com, Bluehost is still answering DNS for you afterwards, from an account you may be planning to cancel. The transfer itself is still safe; the trap is cancelling Bluehost hosting later and taking your DNS down with it.

The short version — 1 minute to check

  1. 1Run dig NS yourdomain.com +short, or use the lookup button on the migration tool.
  2. 2If it returns ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com, Bluehost is still your DNS provider after the transfer completes.
  3. 3That is fine indefinitely while the Bluehost account stays open.
  4. 4Before you cancel Bluehost, move the DNS — either to GoDaddy's nameservers or somewhere else.

Not what you need? If your nameservers already point somewhere else — Cloudflare, or a different host — this does not apply to you and the registrar transfer is genuinely self-contained.

Can I do just this, and nothing else?

Yes — this works on its own

Yes, and this is the task most safely done entirely on its own. A registrar transfer is a billing and ownership change. Your website does not move, your email does not move, and your DNS keeps resolving exactly as it did — the transfer deliberately preserves the existing nameserver settings.

What changes

  • GoDaddy bills you for the domain instead of Bluehost
  • You manage the domain from the GoDaddy Domain Portfolio
  • The expiry date extends by one year as part of the transfer
  • Renewal pricing becomes GoDaddy's rather than Bluehost's

What stays exactly as it is

  • The website stays on whatever server it is on now
  • Email keeps working, untouched
  • Nameservers and every DNS record carry across unchanged
  • There is no downtime and visitors notice nothing

Before doing domain registrar on its own: Only the 60-day eligibility rules — at least 60 days since registration, since any previous transfer, and since any change to the registrant contact details.

Before you start

  • The domain registered at Bluehost for at least 60 days, and not transferred in the last 60 days
  • No registrant contact change in the last 60 days
  • Access to the registrant email address on the domain — the auth code goes there
  • A GoDaddy account, and payment for the transfer
  • At least a couple of weeks before the domain expires; renew first if it is closer than that

Step-by-step

Each step is labelled with which side you are working on, so you always know whether you should be signed in to Bluehost or GoDaddy.

  1. 1On your computer

    Check the domain is eligible before you pay for anything

    The 60-day rules are enforced at the registry, not by the registrars, so no amount of support escalation will bypass them. Confirm first.

    • Look up the domain's creation date and last transfer date in public WHOIS
    • Check whether the status includes clientTransferProhibited — that is the lock you will remove
    • If you changed the registrant name or email recently, count 60 days from that change
    Check status and dates
    whois example.com | grep -i -E 'creation|transfer|status'
  2. 2At Bluehost

    Confirm the registrant email is one you can read

    Bluehost sends the auth code to the registrant email on the domain. If that address is an old mailbox — or worse, an address at the very domain you are moving — fix it now, and accept that doing so may start its own 60-day clock.

    • Bluehost portal → Domains → Contacts tab
    • Verify the registrant email is current and reachable
    • Bluehost recommends an address at an independent provider, so a mail outage on your own domain cannot lock you out
    • Changing registrant details can trigger a 60-day transfer lock — if the address is already fine, change nothing
  3. 3At Bluehost

    Unlock the domain at Bluehost

    Domains are locked by default to prevent unauthorised transfers. Unlocking is instant and has no effect on your live website or email.

    • Bluehost portal → Domains → select the domain
    • Find the Domain Lock setting and toggle it off
    • Confirm in WHOIS that the status has changed away from clientTransferProhibited
  4. 4At Bluehost

    Request the EPP auth code

    The auth code — also called an EPP code, transfer key or authorization code — is the password that proves you control the domain. Bluehost emails it rather than showing it on screen.

    • Bluehost portal → Domains → the Move & Access tab → Request Auth Code
    • The code is sent to the registrant email address
    • Allow up to 24 hours; it is a deliberate security delay, not a fault
    • The code is case- and character-sensitive — select it carefully and watch for a trailing space
  5. 5At Bluehost

    Turn off domain privacy if the transfer is refused

    Privacy services replace your contact details with proxy ones, which sometimes interferes with the confirmation emails the transfer depends on. It is not always necessary, but it is the first thing to try when a transfer will not start.

    • Disable privacy in the Bluehost domain settings
    • Re-enable it at GoDaddy once the transfer completes
  6. 6At GoDaddy

    Start the transfer at GoDaddy

    GoDaddy checks the lock status live, then asks for the auth code. Both indicators must show green before it will let you continue.

    • Go to GoDaddy's domain transfer page and enter the domain
    • If it still shows as locked, use Refresh Status — the unlock can take a few minutes to appear
    • Paste the authorization code
    • Decline or accept Domain Protection as you prefer, then complete checkout
    • The auth code can be corrected in your account afterwards if you pasted it wrong
  7. 7Either side

    Approve the transfer to speed it up

    Left alone, the transfer completes on ICANN's timetable after about five days. Approving the confirmation email finishes it in a day or two.

    • Watch the registrant email for confirmation messages from both registrars
    • Approving the release at the Bluehost end is what actually accelerates it
    • GoDaddy emails you if the transfer cannot be processed; the status is also visible in your account
  8. 8At GoDaddy

    Check the settings that survived the move

    Once the domain appears in your GoDaddy account, confirm the things that matter are intact.

    • Nameservers unchanged — the site should never have gone down
    • Expiry date extended by one year, which the transfer includes
    • Auto-renew switched on, since it does not carry over
    • Contact details correct, and privacy re-enabled if you turned it off

What goes wrong

The failures that actually happen on this step, rather than a generic warning to be careful.

  • Changing contact details can lock the domain for 60 days

    Can cause downtime

    The most avoidable failure on this page. Someone updates the registrant email so they can receive the auth code, and that change starts a fresh 60-day transfer lock — turning a one-week job into a two-month wait. If the address on file is readable, leave it alone. Do contact tidying after the transfer, not before.

  • The auth code is character-exact

    Can cause delays

    Auth codes contain punctuation that is easy to mangle, and a trailing space picked up by copy-paste is enough to make GoDaddy reject it. If the code is refused and you are sure it is right, look for whitespace at either end.

  • Transferring does not move your website

    Can cause downtime

    This is the single biggest misconception. After the transfer, GoDaddy bills you for the domain and your website is still sitting on Bluehost's servers. If you then cancel Bluehost hosting, the site goes offline — the domain transfer did nothing to prevent that.

  • Free domains that came with hosting

    Can cause delays

    If the domain was the free registration bundled with a Bluehost hosting plan, check the account before transferring out. Hosts commonly recover the registration cost when you leave inside the first year, so the transfer can come with a charge you were not expecting.

  • Transferring close to expiry

    Can cause delays

    Starting a transfer in the last week or two before expiry risks the domain expiring mid-transfer, which is a genuinely painful state to unwind. Renew at Bluehost first, then transfer — the remaining time comes with you, so nothing is wasted.

How to check it worked

Do not rely on the site looking fine in your own browser — it caches, and it will tell you what you want to hear.

  • The domain appears in your GoDaddy Domain Portfolio
  • Public WHOIS lists GoDaddy as the sponsoring registrar
  • The expiry date is one year further out than before
  • Nameservers are still whatever they were, and the site is still up
  • Auto-renew is enabled and billing details are correct

If it goes wrong

There is no undo once a transfer completes, and the 60-day lock means you cannot transfer straight back. The safety net is earlier: verify eligibility and the registrant email before you start, because that is where recoverable mistakes live.

Questions about this step

How long does a Bluehost to GoDaddy transfer take?

GoDaddy says most transfers take 5–7 days. Approving the confirmation email from the Bluehost side cuts that to roughly a day or two. Add up to 24 hours before that for Bluehost to email the auth code.

Will I lose the time left on my registration?

No. The remaining registration period carries across, and GoDaddy adds a further year on top as part of the transfer — the exception being a domain already at the maximum ten-year registration length.

Will my website go down during the transfer?

Not if you leave the nameservers alone. The transfer preserves the existing delegation, so DNS keeps resolving to the same place throughout and visitors notice nothing.

Why can't I transfer my domain?

In order of likelihood: it has been registered or transferred within the last 60 days; the registrant contact details were changed within the last 60 days; the domain is still locked; the auth code is wrong or expired; or the domain is too close to expiry. WHOIS status codes will usually tell you which.

Do I need to cancel Bluehost after transferring the domain?

Only if you have also moved the hosting. The domain and the hosting are separate purchases — plenty of people keep a Bluehost site running with the domain registered at GoDaddy. If you have moved everything, keep Bluehost active for a couple of weeks as a rollback path before cancelling.

Reference documentation

Provider interfaces change. When these steps and the official documentation disagree, the documentation wins.

Only if you are doing the full move

Stuck on this step?

Send me the domain and what you have tried. I do Bluehost to GoDaddy moves regularly and can tell you what is actually blocking it.

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