How to move a domain you bought through an AI website builder

The specific question this guide answers

The generic transfer guide assumes you can sign in to the registrar that holds your domain. A domain bought inside an AI builder breaks that assumption. The builder registered it on your behalf, through a registrar you may never have heard of, and the controls you see are the builder’s, not the registrar’s. So the question is narrower: for this builder, who actually holds the domain, and what does the builder document as the way to get it into an account you sign in to directly?

In plain English: a registrar is the company accredited to hold your domain’s registration. A builder that sells you a domain is usually acting as a reseller, placing the registration with a registrar and managing it for you. Owning the domain means having it in a registrar account with your own login, or at least knowing exactly how to get it there.

Step 1: Find out who the registrar is

Two sources, in order of authority. First, the builder’s own documentation or terms, which is what the platform sections below quote; where a builder doesn’t name its registrar, this guide says so rather than guessing. Second, as evidence rather than documentation, the public registration record: look the domain up at lookup.icann.org and read the “Registrar Information” section. That names the sponsoring registrar of record. It tells you where the registration lives; it doesn’t tell you whether the builder has given you any way to sign in there.

Step 2: Do you have registrar credentials at all?

Try to sign in at the registrar from step 1 with any email you used. Three outcomes:

• You can, and the domain is listed. The builder set the domain up in an account that’s yours. Follow the registration guide’s same-day settings and you’re done.
• You can’t, and the builder’s domain settings offer transfer or management options. The domain is in the builder’s reseller account, and the builder’s documented route is your way out. See the platform sections.
• You can’t, and the builder offers nothing. The route is the builder’s support, and the ICANN registrant FAQ is worth knowing: the registrar of record must provide the authorization code to the registrant, and can’t refuse over a billing dispute.

Step 3: Document before you touch anything

This is the same capture the DNS guide asks for, and it matters more here, because the builder’s nameservers may stop answering for the domain the moment it leaves.

The three routes out

• A transfer out, the standard registrar transfer: unlock, get the authorization (EPP) code, start the transfer at your chosen registrar, approve. Subject to the 60-day lock after registration under ICANN’s rules.
• An account push, where the domain is moved between two accounts at the same registrar without a transfer. Faster, no lock, but only where the builder documents it.
• A support request, where the builder does one of the above for you. Slower, and you should ask for the authorization code in writing.

Whichever route, the domain’s DNS records don’t automatically come with it; see the DNS section below.

Lovable

Registrar: Lovable’s domain registration terms name Name.com as the sponsoring ICANN-accredited registrar and reserve the right to use others. Credentials: the domain is managed from Lovable’s Workspace settings, under Workspace domains, not from a Name.com login of your own. Route: self-serve transfer out. In Workspace domains, choose Configure next to the domain, open its menu, and select Transfer out; turn off the transfer lock, then Reveal authorization code and give the code to your new registrar. Generating a new code invalidates the previous one. Lovable says the lock can’t be disabled within 60 days of registration, that the transfer is irreversible from Lovable’s side, that it tracks the transfer and disconnects the domain from any project when it completes, and that connected projects stop serving traffic on the domain at that moment. Lovable-bought domains belong to the workspace rather than to one project, and Lovable’s DNS panel for them supports MX records, so email can be attached there too.

There’s also a lighter option that leaves the registration where it is: point the domain at your own custom nameservers, such as Cloudflare’s, after which Lovable stops managing its DNS. Lovable is explicit that any connected project and its email stay offline until you recreate every record at the new provider, which is why the capture in step 3 comes first. Lovable-bought domains are billed separately from the subscription, so a plan change doesn’t affect renewal, and the workspace owner can turn off auto-renew or transfer out at any time.

Bolt

Registrar: Bolt’s current documentation does not identify the registrar. Its purchase page says that during the 60-day lock you can move the domain into your own Name.com account, and that transfers to other registrars become available after the 60 days, which strongly implies Name.com, but Bolt doesn’t say so outright. Credentials: the domain is managed inside Bolt; Bolt lets you edit most record types for it but won’t let you override the system record that points it at Bolt Hosting. Route: two documented options and one undocumented. Within the lock, the move into a Name.com account of your own, which reads like an account push; after the lock, a transfer to any registrar. Bolt doesn’t document the steps for either. Name.com’s own documentation describes moving a domain between two Name.com accounts with an account code rather than an authorization code, and a transfer away with an unlock and an authorization code that isn’t shown in the first 60 days; whether Bolt performs either on your behalf isn’t stated, and Bolt’s domain FAQ points to support for domain matters (it says to contact support to stop a domain renewing, even though its purchase page now documents an auto-renewal toggle). Ask support, in writing, for the account code or the authorization code. Bolt also allows changing the domain’s NS records, which lets you manage DNS elsewhere without moving the registration, though it doesn’t document what happens to its own records when a domain transfers out.

One Bolt-specific warning: transferring a Bolt project to another Bolt user requires removing its custom domain first, and Bolt says a Bolt-bought domain can’t then be reconnected until it expires. Move the domain out before any project transfer.

Replit

Registrar: Replit’s current documentation does not identify the registrar. Credentials: the domain is managed from the published app’s settings in Replit; there’s no registrar login of your own. Route: support request. Replit’s domain purchasing page says you can transfer the domain to another registrar by contacting Replit Support, that ICANN’s 60-day waiting period applies after purchase, and that domains can be moved between Replit accounts through support without that wait. No self-serve authorization code is documented, so ask support for the code and the unlock in the same request. Auto-renewal can be turned off from the Domains tab in Publishing; registration fees are non-refundable; and domain purchasing is currently offered for personal-account apps. Disconnecting a domain from an app keeps it available to link to another of your projects.

What Replit doesn’t document is what happens to the domain’s DNS after a transfer, or what happens to a Replit-bought domain when the account drops to the free Starter plan beyond the general statement that custom domain connections are removed. Capture the records first and plan to recreate them.

v0 and Vercel

v0 doesn’t sell domains, so a v0 site’s domain was bought somewhere you already know, possibly Vercel. Vercel’s docs speak of Vercel as the registrar, while its domain terms say registration is provided through Name.com and Tucows as sponsoring registrars; either way you sign in to Vercel directly, so the ownership question doesn’t arise in the same way. Vercel documents transferring a domain out from the domain’s menu in the dashboard, which shows the authorization code with no further confirmation on Vercel’s side, once the domain has been registered for more than 60 days; it says a transfer can take up to a week, and that transferring the registration and changing DNS provider are separate operations, with the advice to export your records first. Vercel doesn’t provide email for domains it registers.

DNS, email and the website during the move

Changing registrar and changing hosting are separate actions, and this guide only changes the registrar. But a builder-bought domain usually uses the builder’s nameservers, and those may stop answering once the domain leaves (Lovable says its projects stop serving on the domain the moment a transfer completes). So the sequence is:

1. Decide where DNS will be managed afterwards: the new registrar, or a provider such as Cloudflare.
2. Recreate every record from your capture there, including MX and the email TXT records, before the transfer completes. If you keep using the builder’s hosting, the website records point at it exactly as before.
3. If the domain is being transferred, point its nameservers at the new provider at the same time or immediately after; if you only changed nameservers, that is the whole move.
4. Verify the site and email afterwards, both directions, as the domain guide describes.

Email is the thing most likely to break, because builders rarely mention it: a domain with a mailbox depends on MX and TXT records that the builder’s panel may have been holding. Lovable’s own email feature, for instance, works by delegating a subdomain’s NS records; if you used it, note that the delegation ends when Lovable stops managing DNS.

Checklist

Sources

The rules and product behaviour described above were checked against these pages when the guide was last updated. If something here has changed, these are the places to look.

• Domain registration terms · Lovable
• Custom domain: transfer out and custom nameservers · Lovable
• Custom emails · Lovable
• Purchase a domain · Bolt
• DNS records · Bolt
• Troubleshoot domains · Bolt
• Projects and files: transfer a project · Bolt
• Domain purchasing · Replit
• Custom domains · Replit
• Subscriptions help · Replit
• Custom domains · v0
• Transfer your domain · Vercel
• Domain name registration and services terms · Vercel
• Transfer away from Name.com · Name.com
• Internal transfer between Name.com accounts · Name.com
• Transfer Policy · ICANN
• Transfer Policy FAQs for registrants · ICANN
• ICANN Lookup · ICANN