The daily schedule for .COM and .NET domains reaching Pending Delete is moving. From 1 October 2026, the scheduled Verisign drop time is 12:00 UTC, bringing the release several hours earlier than the timing domain investors have been used to.
Ech’s short answer
SnapNames and NameJet are notifying customers that Verisign’s .COM and .NET drop time is changing on 1 October 2026. Their updated guidance gives a scheduled drop time of 12:00 UTC and an order deadline of 11:45 UTC for their Pending Delete backorders.
Anyone who watches deleting .COM and .NET domains will need to move their daily schedule forward. Verisign’s scheduled drop is moving to 12:00 UTC from 1 October 2026, according to notices and updated timing guidance published by SnapNames and NameJet.
The change matters most to drop-catching services, domain investors and buyers following names that have reached Pending Delete. It does not mean every domain that expires will suddenly become available at noon: many expired names are renewed, restored or handled by a registrar before they ever reach the registry deletion stage.
For UK buyers, the new 12:00 UTC schedule means 1:00pm while British Summer Time is in force. Once the UK returns to GMT, 12:00 UTC is simply 12:00 noon.
SnapNames and NameJet are both displaying notices that Verisign’s drop time changes on 1 October. Their .COM/.NET guidance lists 12:00 UTC as the scheduled drop and 11:45 UTC as the minimum order deadline for their own backorder systems.
The updated schedule is easy to remember in UTC, but the local clock time changes depending on daylight-saving rules where you live.
SnapNames’ updated FAQ states that Verisign processes .COM and .NET Pending Delete drops according to UTC and gives the scheduled drop time as 12:00 UTC. It says orders on SnapNames must be placed at least 15 minutes beforehand, making 11:45 UTC its deadline.
NameJet publishes the same timing: 12:00 UTC for the Verisign .COM/.NET drop and 11:45 UTC for its order deadline. Both services are also displaying a notice that the Verisign timing change takes effect on 1 October 2026.
Drop: 12:00 UTC
Order deadline: 11:45 UTC
1 October: 1:00pm BST
After clocks return to GMT: 12:00 noon
Daylight time: 8:00am EDT
Standard time: 7:00am EST
Daylight time: 5:00am PDT
Standard time: 4:00am PST
The registry schedule is expressed in UTC, which does not move for daylight saving. Local equivalents can shift by an hour when a country changes its clocks, so people following drops should treat 12:00 UTC as the fixed reference.
Industry timing guides have long tracked the Verisign deletion run at around 2:00pm US Eastern, or roughly 18:00 UTC while daylight saving is in effect.
Before this change, .COM and .NET Pending Delete releases were commonly tracked at around 2:00pm Eastern Time. During US daylight saving time, that is approximately 18:00 UTC.
Moving the scheduled time to 12:00 UTC brings the daily drop roughly six hours earlier compared with that familiar daylight-time schedule. For US-based domain investors, the difference feels even more dramatic because the drop moves from the afternoon to early morning.
Around 2:00pm Eastern / 11:00am Pacific, commonly cited as about 18:00 UTC during US daylight saving time.
Scheduled for 12:00 UTC — 8:00am Eastern and 5:00am Pacific while US daylight saving time is still in effect.
12:00 UTC stays fixed, but local clocks do not. For example, the UK equivalent is 1:00pm BST on 1 October 2026 and returns to 12:00 noon after the UK switches back to GMT. US Eastern and Pacific equivalents also change when daylight saving ends.
The new timing applies to names reaching the final registry-deletion stage, not every domain simply because its registration date has expired.
ICANN’s .COM registry specifications state that a domain enters Pending Delete if it has not been restored during the Redemption Grace Period. The Pending Delete period lasts five calendar days.
During that final stage, registrar requests to modify the domain are rejected. Once the period ends, the name is purged from the registry database and can become available for a new registration.
This distinction matters because an “expired domain” can still be in several earlier stages. A name may be renewed by its previous registrant, restored during redemption or sold through a registrar’s own expiry process. The Verisign timing change is specifically relevant when a .COM or .NET domain reaches the final Pending Delete release.
For buyers, the useful question is not only whether a domain has expired, but whether it has progressed all the way to Pending Delete. Only then is a registry drop imminent under this schedule.
Anyone tracking .COM or .NET Pending Delete inventory should update schedules, alerts and backorder routines before the new timing starts.
Under the familiar previous schedule, .COM and .NET drops landed in the evening for UK users. A 12:00 UTC registry schedule shifts that activity to lunchtime or early afternoon instead: 1:00pm BST on 1 October, then 12:00 noon once GMT returns.
On 1 October, 12:00 UTC corresponds to 8:00am Eastern and 5:00am Pacific. People who manually review daily drop lists or make last-minute backorder decisions will therefore need to do that work much earlier than before.
The 11:45 UTC figure is the published SnapNames and NameJet order deadline for their services. It is not a universal rule for every registrar or drop catcher. If you use another provider, check its own cutoff rather than assuming it follows the same 15-minute window.
Both SnapNames and NameJet recommend placing orders earlier. Their 11:45 UTC time is the minimum published cutoff for participating through their systems, not a reason to leave a valuable backorder until the final minute.
Bottom line
Verisign’s scheduled .COM and .NET Pending Delete drop is moving to 12:00 UTC. SnapNames and NameJet publish an 11:45 UTC order deadline for their backorders, and UK buyers will see the drop at 1:00pm BST when the change begins. The key is to update any routine that still assumes the familiar later-day Verisign drop.
