ST Domain passing 5 stages during its life:

1. General availability
2. Registration period
3. Renew grace period
4. Redemption period
5. Termination/End of life

Diagram describing all 5 stages:

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General availability

Period of time when domain is available for registration. In other words – domain is free to be registered on first come, first served basis.

Registration period

When domain is being registered it is entering “registration period” stage. This stage is identified by domain expire date. “Registration period” stage can be extended by renewing domain which change its expire date.

Renew grace period

This period means that domain has expired. In other words, domain will enter “renew grace period” by reaching its expire date. Expired domain will gain new status called “serverHold” which identify that domain is still busy but not delegated to the root zone, particularly this mean that domain is offline. Domain is kept in “Renew grace period” for 40 days, during this period Registrant keep domain ownership but is not allowed to perform any updates except renewal which is done without any additional fee and restore full control over domain.

Redemption period

“Redemption period” follow after “Renew grace period” which mean it will start 40 days after domain expires. Domain is held in redemption period for 30 days and gain status “redemptionPeriod”. During this period ST Registry may take control over domain and sell it through third party service providers (for example auctions). Previous Registrar or Registrant still can restore this domain by sending corresponding application to ST Registry support department, in such case there is 90 EUR application fee + renewal price according to the billing plan. Beside that, domains in redemption period can be sold to new Registrant/Owner, process is similar to the restoration procedure – gaining party send application, pay 90 EUR application fee + registration price according to their billing plan.
Domains in redemption period are operated on first come, first served basis.

Termination

After redemption period, domain is entering into termination period and gain status “pendingDelete”. Domain termination process can take up to 5 days and disallow any updates to the domain, in other words – domain restoration in termination period is not possible.
Termination process perform following operations:

1. Removal Domain and all related connections from ST Registry domains repository
2. Remove records from WHOIS database
3. Release domain for general availability

This period finalise domain life cycle and ends its existence 75 days after domain expire date was reached.