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Point your domain from Bluehost to Hostinger nameservers

Nameservers decide which company answers DNS for your domain. Changing them hands the whole zone over at once — website, email, subdomains and verification records together.

This cutover is less nerve-wracking than most, provided you did the previous step. Because Hostinger stores records while the domain still points elsewhere, the zone you are switching to already exists and has already been checked. The switch activates something known rather than something you are about to improvise.

One thing to be careful about: Hostinger's nameservers are shown per domain in hPanel and its documentation notes they may vary. Read yours rather than copying a pair from an article — including this one.

Hands-on time
10 minutes to change
Start to finish
Up to 24 hours, often a few hours
Difficulty
Easy
Steps
4

Downtime risk: Low if the zone was staged and checked first. High if it was not.

Check this first

Do you actually need to change nameservers at all?

Often not. Nameservers decide who manages DNS, which is a separate question from where the site is hosted. Hostinger supports this directly with its Connect via DNS record option, and its documentation names keeping DNS at your current provider or at Cloudflare as ordinary reasons to choose it.

The short version — 5 minutes instead of 24 hours

  1. 1Ask what you actually want: a website on a different server, or a different company managing DNS?
  2. 2If it is only the website, use Connect via DNS record, edit the A record at Bluehost, and stop here.
  3. 3If your DNS is at a third party such as Cloudflare, that is where the A record lives — neither Bluehost nor Hostinger is involved.
  4. 4Only if you want Hostinger managing the zone should you continue below.

Not what you need? If you are closing the Bluehost account entirely and your nameservers point at Bluehost, you cannot skip this — the DNS service goes away with the account.

Can I do just this, and nothing else?

Yes — this works on its own

Yes, provided the zone at Hostinger is already populated — which, unlike most hosts, you are able to do in advance here. If it is empty, this single click takes down your email along with everything else, so the honest answer depends entirely on whether you did the previous step.

What changes

  • Hostinger answers every DNS question for the domain
  • Every record you staged becomes active at once

What stays exactly as it is

  • The domain stays registered wherever it is now — this is not a registrar transfer
  • Website files are not moved by this step
  • Bluehost's zone remains intact and unedited, which makes rollback instant

Before doing nameservers on its own: The zone imported and checked at Hostinger. Skipping that turns a routine change into an outage.

Before you start

  • The DNS zone already imported and checked at Hostinger
  • The nameserver pair as shown in your own hPanel, not copied from elsewhere
  • TTLs lowered at Bluehost at least a day earlier
  • The website already tested on Hostinger

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 Hostinger.

  1. 1At Hostinger

    Read your nameservers from hPanel

    Hostinger's documentation says the pair shown may vary by domain, so this is not a value to memorise or copy. Take it from the screen that is talking about your domain.

    • hPanel → the site or domain → the nameserver details are shown in the connection step
    • Copy both entries exactly as displayed
    • Custom nameservers go through a validation step that can itself take up to 24 hours
  2. 2At Bluehost

    Change the nameservers at Bluehost

    The registrar controls the delegation, so this happens where the domain is registered.

    • Bluehost portal → Domains → select the domain → Nameservers tab
    • Click Change Nameservers, enter the Hostinger pair and Save
    • Replace the whole set rather than one of the pair
    Replacing
    ns1.bluehost.com   →   (the first value shown in your hPanel)
ns2.bluehost.com   →   (the second value shown in your hPanel)
  3. 3On your computer

    Watch the staged records come alive

    The records you imported earlier start being served at this point. Because you checked them already, this is a verification pass rather than a scramble.

    • Hostinger allows up to 24 hours, and says most changes take effect within a few hours
    • whatsmydns.net shows resolution from several locations at once
    • A mixed picture during propagation is normal, not a fault
    Check the delegation and the records
    dig NS example.com +short
dig @8.8.8.8 example.com A +short
dig @8.8.8.8 example.com MX +short
  4. 4At Hostinger

    Re-issue SSL once the domain resolves to Hostinger

    Certificate issuance validates by checking the domain points at the requesting server, so it can only succeed after propagation.

    • Hostinger issues a certificate automatically once DNS resolves to it
    • Confirm the site still forces HTTPS afterwards
    • Check no stale CAA record is blocking issuance

What goes wrong

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

  • Do not copy a nameserver pair from any article

    Can cause downtime

    Hostinger assigns these per domain and its own documentation warns they may vary. A pair that works for someone else's domain will not serve your zone, and the failure looks like a propagation problem rather than a typo — which is what makes it expensive to diagnose.

  • Custom nameservers add their own 24-hour validation

    Can cause delays

    If you are using custom rather than standard Hostinger nameservers, they go through a validation process that can take up to 24 hours on top of normal propagation. Budget for it rather than assuming something has gone wrong.

  • Changing nameservers moves email too, whether you meant it to or not

    Can cause downtime

    People change nameservers to move a website and are surprised when mail stops. The nameservers determine the whole zone, MX records included. If email is staying where it is, its MX records still need to exist in the new zone.

  • You cannot shorten nameserver propagation with TTLs

    Can cause delays

    Lowering the TTL on your A and MX records genuinely speeds up record changes. It does not speed up a nameserver change: the delegation TTL is set by the TLD registry — typically 48 hours for .com — and is not yours to adjust. Plan for the full window rather than expecting your TTL work to cover it.

  • Both zones stay live during propagation

    Can cause downtime

    For a day or two, some visitors reach the old host and some reach the new one. If both can accept form submissions, orders or comments, you will end up with data split across two databases. For an ecommerce site, put the old one in maintenance mode at cutover.

  • Half-changed nameserver pairs

    Can cause delays

    Entering the new primary and leaving the old secondary produces intermittent, maddening behaviour — resolvers get different answers depending on which nameserver they happen to ask. Replace the whole set at once.

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.

  • dig NS example.com +short returns only the new nameservers
  • dig @8.8.8.8 example.com A +short returns the new hosting IP
  • whatsmydns.net shows consistent results across most global locations
  • The site loads over HTTPS with a valid certificate, without a warning
  • A test email to the domain arrives, confirming MX survived the switch

If it goes wrong

Set the nameservers back to ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com. Bluehost's zone is unchanged and correct the moment it takes effect — you only wait out propagation again.

Questions about this step

What are Hostinger's nameservers?

There is no single answer, which is the point. Hostinger shows the correct pair for your domain in hPanel and notes that it may vary. Read it there rather than copying a value from a tutorial.

Why do my new DNS records not work yet?

Because the domain still points at the old nameservers. Hostinger saves records added while the domain is delegated elsewhere, but they do not take effect until the nameservers change. A complete-looking record list in hPanel is staged, not live.

Why does my site still show the old version?

Almost always your own browser or your ISP's resolver still holding the previous answer. Check with dig against a public resolver such as 8.8.8.8 before concluding anything is wrong — that tells you what the internet sees, rather than what your laptop remembers.

How long do DNS changes take to apply?

Record changes within a zone that is already authoritative apply within an hour for most resolvers, governed by the TTL you set. Nameserver changes are slower, because the delegation TTL belongs to the TLD registry — allow up to 48 hours.

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 Hostinger moves regularly and can tell you what is actually blocking it.

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