Domain flipping: how it works, step by step

Domain flipping is buying a domain name for less than a business will later pay for it, holding it until that business finds it, and transferring it properly when they pay. The method has five parts: choose names a business would want and nobody else has rights to, buy them cheaply, price and list them, let buyers find them, and move the name by the rules when it sells.

In Australia it is allowed in com.au, net.au and plain .au names, within rules set by auDA, the body that runs .au. Everything below about .au comes from auDA's own pages and its .au Licensing Rules, read on 21 October 2026.

Choosing names

Start from the buyer, not the name. Picture who would paint it on a van or print it on an invoice, and ask whether there are many of them. A name earns its price when a business could use it tomorrow: short, easy to say over the phone, spelt the way it sounds, in the extension its customers expect.

Then check that the name belongs to nobody else. Do both checks before you pay, every time:

• Trade marks. IP Australia's Australian Trade Mark Search "contains details of registered and pending trade marks". Search the words, and the words with spaces between them.
• Business and company names. Search the same words on ABN Lookup. In .au disputes, a registered business or company name counts, not only a trade mark. Under auDA's dispute policy, a name a complainant has rights in includes their "company, business or other legal or trading name, as registered with the relevant Australian government authority".

What to avoid is anything that leans on someone else's brand: the brand itself, a misspelling of it, or the brand with a word added. IP Australia puts the risk plainly: "if a domain name is using a trade mark name, the owner of the trade mark can take certain actions to recover that domain name."

Which names you are allowed to hold to sell

auDA calls registering a name to sell it "domain monetisation", and treats the extensions differently.

A plain .au is the open one. auDA says it is "open to everyone who has a validated Australian presence", and "You can choose any .au direct domain name you like, provided it's available and you have permission to use it."

A com.au is not. You must be a commercial entity, and the name must connect to you: a match or acronym of your own company, business or personal name, a match of your Australian trade mark, or a match or synonym of a service you provide or goods you sell (rule 2.4.4). auDA permits monetisation in com.au "where it is undertaken in accordance with the .au Licensing Rules, including meeting registrant eligibility requirements". So you cannot register a com.au because it is free and you like it.

The prohibited list in full is org.au, asn.au, id.au, edu.au and the state and territory names (rule 2.4.13).

Where names come from

Registering a new name

A new .au name is licensed for one to five years at a time. From 1 October 2026 auDA's wholesale price is "AUD$9.50 for a domain name licence in any .au namespace" per year, before GST, and each provider sets its own retail price on top. Your provider's fee comes round every year you hold the name, and it is the real cost of a portfolio: a name you hold for six years has cost you six years of fees.

Expired and dropped .au names

When a holder forgets to renew, auDA gives them a 30 calendar day grace period, during which their website and email stop working. If they still do not renew, "your domain name will be removed from the registry at the end of the 30 days and become available to be registered by the public on a first-come, first-served basis."

Specialists called drop catchers try to register names at that moment; auDA describes them as providers that "specialise in 'catching' domain names as soon as they are removed from the registry." Two things hold you back here. First come, first served in the rules is still "subject to its availability and the Person satisfying eligibility criteria", so a dropped com.au is only yours if it connects to your business. And auDA warns that securing an expired name "is not guaranteed".

Buying from a holder, at auction or on a marketplace

Buying a name someone already holds is a change of registrant. On the day it moves, you must meet the eligibility rules for that extension, sign a new licence agreement, choose a licence period and pay the licence fee (rule 2.13.2), and the registrar checks this before it transfers anything (rule 2.13.3). Check eligibility before you bid: a com.au you cannot hold is a com.au you cannot receive. The steps are in our guide to transferring a .com.au to a new owner.

Pricing and listing a name

Work out your floor first: what you paid, the licence fees for each year you expect to hold it, and the selling fees. Then think about the ceiling, which is what the name is worth to the one kind of business that would use it, not what an automatic appraisal says.

Look at what similar names are listed for, but remember those are asking prices, not sales. Then choose how to sell:

• A fixed asking price lets a buyer who is ready pay today, without a conversation.
• Offers only suits a name you cannot price with confidence, at the cost of more back and forth.

On Dotto, for example, once your seller application is accepted your first listing is free, the buyer pays the listed price, and from a sale the seller pays a 12.5% commission (GST included) plus a platform fee of 1.7% and $0.30 when the buyer pays with an Australian card (dotto.com/sell). Whatever marketplace you use, put its fees into your floor.

One strategy is closed in .au: leasing. The rules say a holder "must not rent, lease, sub-licence or permit the use of the Licence by another Person", except a related Australian company (rule 2.11.12).

How buyers find a name

A buyer can find your name in three ways.

• Searching a marketplace for names in their trade or with the right extension.
• Typing the name itself. A simple page on the domain saying it is for sale, with a way to reach you, turns that visit into an enquiry.
• Looking up who holds it. auDA's own advice to someone whose old name has been taken is to contact the new holder "using the registrant contact information in the WHOIS tool, or with the assistance of a domain broker." Keep your details current: the rules give you 14 calendar days to report a change (rule 2.11.9).

Approach buyers with care. Under the dispute policy, buying a name mainly to sell it for more than it cost you can count as evidence of bad faith, whoever you sell it to. What matters first is that the name does not match anyone else's trade mark, business name or company name, covered below.

How the sale and transfer work

How long it takes

Some parts run on fixed clocks set by auDA's rules: up to 28 calendar days for the seller to ask once a deal is signed, unless the agreement says otherwise, two calendar days for the registrar to transfer, and a 30 day grace period before an expired name drops.

The part with no clock is finding the buyer. We found no published, dated figure from a primary source on how long names take to sell, and nothing specific to .au. In practice it varies widely: a name can sell in its first week, take years, or never sell. Budget for the licence fee every year you hold it, and judge each name at renewal time.

Is domain flipping legal?

auDA's rules allow it in com.au, net.au and .au direct. auDA describes domain monetisation as "registering a domain name to sell, lease or hold the domain name to generate revenue", though leasing is not allowed, as above. Selling a name for profit is not the problem. What gets a flipper into trouble is the choice of name.

Cybersquatting and the auDRP

Disputes over .au names go to the .au Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP). To win, a complainant must show all three of these:

• the name is identical or confusingly similar to a name, trade mark or service mark they have rights in;
• you have no rights or legitimate interests in it;
• it was registered or later used in bad faith.

The policy lists, as evidence of bad faith, registering or acquiring a name "primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to another person for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs". The policy's examples of a legitimate interest leave out offering domain names you acquired to sell, and auDA says passing the registrar's eligibility check does not establish one either. A complaint only succeeds if all three tests are met, and the first is that the name matches something the complainant has rights in. A name that matches nobody's trade mark, business name or company name gives that test nothing to stand on.

A complainant can ask for the name to be cancelled or transferred to them. Their fees start at $2,000 and decisions are binding on both sides. Either side can start court proceedings within 10 days of the decision; if neither does, the decision is carried out.

For .com and other names overseen by ICANN, its dispute policy page says "All registrars must follow" its Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), with expedited proceedings for abusive registrations "(for example, cybersquatting)".

Trade marks

IP Australia's point is short: "Registering a business, company or domain name, does not give you any exclusive rights for your goods and services. Only a trade mark can give you that kind of protection." Holding a .au name gives you a licence, not ownership; the rules say "A Person does not legally 'own' a Domain Name."

A worked example

The person, name and numbers here are invented, and the example shows the steps, not a likely price or time.

Mia runs a small bike workshop in Geelong as a sole trader with an ABN. She notices that "tidewheel" is short, easy to say and suits a coastal bike shop or a cycling tour business. She searches it on the trade mark register and on ABN Lookup and finds nothing.

She registers tidewheel.au, which she can hold because she has an Australian presence. She cannot register tidewheel.com.au: it matches nothing about her own business, so it fails the connection test.

She lists tidewheel.au with an asking price of $1,800 and accepts offers. Fourteen months later a cycling tour operator in Hobart offers $1,200. She counters, and they agree $1,400 in writing, with a clause saying she will request the transfer within three days. The buyer pays through the marketplace, which holds the money. The next day Mia asks her registrar for a change of registrant and gives the authorisation code. The registrar checks that the tour operator has an Australian presence and transfers the licence within two calendar days. The buyer confirms the name has arrived, and the marketplace pays Mia, less its fees.