How to manually approve an expedited outbound domain transfer at Cloudflare

Cloudflare is a stable domain registrar and among the cheapest. However, one major disadvantage is that domains registered at Cloudflare must be assigned Cloudflare DNS. Using Cloudflare DNS is not always desirable, so if you absolutely need to switch a domain to a different set of name servers, you must transfer the domain to a different registrar.

Luckily, as easy as it is to transfer a domain to Cloudflare as easy it is to transfer a domain out. Cloudflare even supports manual expedited transfers, so you typically can complete the transfer within an hour. Exactly how to expedite an outbound transfer is not explained in detail during the transfer process, so here is a quick guide.

Prerequisites

You must have initiated the domain transfer at your new registrar and received an e-mail from Cloudflare stating that an outbound domain transfer has been initiated. If you take no further action when receiving this e-mail, the transfer will automatically complete after five days. Following the steps below, you can finalize the transfer within minutes to a few hours.

Approve outbound transfer

1. Go to your Cloudflare Dashboard.
2. Click “Domain Registration” The option “Manage Domains” should be picked by default. Otherwise, click it.
3. Click “Manage” next to the domain you are transferring out.
4. Click “Configuration”
5. In the box “Transfer to another registrar” click “Accept transfer”

Cloudflare immediately releases the domain and you will receive an e-mail from Cloudflare confirming the accepted outbound transfer. It depends on your new registrar when the transfer finalizes at their side. Within an hour is not unusual.