Hostinger renewal price: what you really pay, and how to move your domain out

The Hostinger renewal price is what you pay once your first prepaid term ends, and it is not the price on the banner. At the time of writing (October 2026), Hostinger’s Premium web hosting costs £2.99 a month (about $4) for the first 48 months, then renews at £10.99 a month (about $15), both before VAT. The low rate is real, but it lasts only as long as the term you paid for upfront.

I never chose Hostinger myself: I inherited it through clients whose websites and domains were already there. I have seen its renewals jump from one year to the next, and I find hPanel, its control panel, a bit complicated for a small business owner who handles everything alone. That is my view rather than a verdict, and further down I say who Hostinger does suit.

This tutorial has two halves. First the figures, so you can budget for the renewal or decide to leave. Then the move itself: seven steps to take your domain to another registrar, in an order that keeps your website and your email working throughout. The domain, the hosting and the email are three separate things that can each move on their own; if that distinction is still fuzzy, my guide to domain vs hosting vs email explains it.

Hostinger renewal price in October 2026: the real figures

Hostinger’s UK prices are listed before VAT, which is added at checkout. Here is the Premium plan as Hostinger’s web hosting page shows it at the time of writing, with VAT at the standard 20% rate:

The plan above it follows the same pattern: £3.99 a month (about $5) for 48 months, then £13.99 (about $19). In both cases the renewal rate is more than three times the first one; for Premium, £10.99 is about 3.7 times £2.99.

Two details change the sums:

• The free domain is free for the first year only. Premium includes a domain for its first year; after that, the domain renews at Hostinger’s standard price for its extension, on top of the hosting. At the time of writing, Hostinger’s domain pages list £10.99 a year (about $15) for a .co.uk and £16.99 (about $23) for a .com.
• Promotions move the first price, not the renewal. Hostinger’s own deal pages have shown Premium at £1.99 a month (about $2.70) with three extra months, still renewing at £10.99. Whatever the banner says, the figure to plan for is the renewal.

Why the first price is so low: four years paid upfront

The £2.99 is not a monthly subscription. It is the 48-month term divided by 48: you pay £143.52 before VAT (about $192) on the first day, or £172.22 with VAT (about $231). The page sets that against a “regular price” of £575.52 (about $770) for the same 48 months, which is why the discount looks so large.

It can be a good deal, as long as you see the whole picture:

1. The money is committed for four years. If you outgrow the plan or leave after a year, the remaining months are already paid, so read Hostinger’s refund terms before you buy.
2. The renewal arrives when nobody remembers the first price. Four years later, the same hosting costs £131.88 a year before VAT instead of £35.88. That is the jump people notice on their bank statement.
3. The banner rate needs the 48-month term. If you pick a shorter term in the cart, read the monthly price again before you pay.

Renew or leave? Who Hostinger suits

Hostinger suits people who are at ease in a control panel and happy to pay four years upfront: a freelancer who runs a few WordPress sites, or an owner with some technical confidence who wants a low monthly cost. If that is you and the renewal fits your budget, renewing is a reasonable choice. Put the date in your calendar and budget for £10.99 a month (about $15), not £2.99.

It is not what I recommend to small business owners who run everything on their own. Of the hosts I have worked with, I recommend Infomaniak, and o2switch for businesses in France; I compare the options in Hostinger vs OVH vs Infomaniak.

For domains, my habits are with Spaceship, which was built by Namecheap, and I trust both: their prices are fair, their support answers around the clock, and their renewals have not jumped the way I have seen elsewhere. My Spaceship vs Namecheap comparison explains the difference between them, and my pick of the best domain registrar in the UK compares six registrars on renewal price.

The rest of this guide covers the domain. If you are leaving Hostinger’s hosting or email as well, they move separately, and step 7 shows when to switch them.

Step 1: check that the domain can leave, and when

Hostinger’s guide to transferring a domain out sets three conditions:

• 60 days. At least 60 days must have passed since the domain was registered or last transferred, under ICANN’s policy for .com and the other generic extensions.
• A normal status. The domain must not be suspended, expired or in its redemption period.
• DNSSEC off. If DNSSEC is on, switch it off first and confirm with a DNSSEC checker.

Then note the dates. In hPanel, open Domains, click Manage next to the domain and write down its expiry date. Hostinger says a transfer can take up to seven days, so do not start in the domain’s last week. Your hosting plan has its own renewal date, which can be months away from the domain’s.

The 60-day rule comes from ICANN’s Transfer Policy. ICANN has adopted a revised version, but at the time of writing the current rules (the code within five days of your request, the 60-day locks) still apply. A .co.uk follows Nominet’s rules instead, covered in step 4.

Step 2: copy the DNS zone and lower the TTLs

A transfer changes who you pay for the domain. It moves neither your DNS records, nor your website, nor your mailboxes. But the day you stop paying Hostinger, the zone has to live somewhere else, and the copy you make now lets you rebuild it in ten minutes instead of guessing.

In hPanel, open the domain’s DNS records and copy every line into a text file, or take screenshots: type, name, value, priority and TTL. These are the ones that matter most:

Your copy might look like this, with your own values:

A      @        203.0.113.10                  TTL 3600
CNAME  www      yourdomain.co.uk.             TTL 3600
MX     @        10 mail.example.net.          TTL 3600
TXT    @        "v=spf1 include:_spf.example.net ~all"
TXT    _dmarc   "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourdomain.co.uk"

Then, at least a day before you change anything, lower the TTL of each record you will move to 300 seconds (five minutes), or the lowest hPanel accepts. On the day of the switch, caches then forget the old answers within minutes, and if a record turns out wrong in the new zone, your fix reaches everyone just as fast. My guide to DNS records explains each type and how propagation works.

Step 3: switch off the transfer lock and privacy protection

In hPanel, go to Domains, click Manage next to the domain and stay on Domain Overview. Two settings to change there:

1. Transfer lock: switch the toggle off. The lock stops anyone, you included, from moving the domain, so it must be off before your new registrar can request it.
2. Privacy Protection: switch it off as well, as Hostinger’s guide asks. You can turn privacy back on at your new registrar; Spaceship and Namecheap both include it free.

Hostinger adds a warning: after changing the lock, wait 12 hours before switching it back. If the lock turns itself back on, the domain is probably still inside its 60-day window.

Step 4: get the EPP code, or change the IPS tag of a .co.uk

Still on Domain Overview, find the authorisation code (hPanel labels it Authorization code) and click Get code to reveal it; Hostinger’s EPP code guide shows where it sits. Copy it exactly, paste it only into your new registrar’s form, and keep it as you would a password: it is what a registrar needs to claim the domain.

A .co.uk or .uk works differently, because Nominet’s domains have no EPP code. Every UK registrar has an IPS tag, its identifier at Nominet. Find your new registrar’s tag in its help pages, then change the domain’s IPS tag in hPanel to that tag. Hostinger says the transfer then starts immediately, so open your account at the new registrar first.

Step 5: start the transfer at your new registrar

At the registrar you are moving to, open its transfer page, type the domain and paste the EPP code. Before you pay, check three things:

1. The renewal price there. For a .com, the transfer usually adds a year to the registration, so what matters is the yearly price from then on, not only the transfer price.
2. The nameservers. If the form offers to keep the current ones, keep them. You will move the DNS in step 7, on your own schedule.
3. Privacy and auto-renew. Switch both on for the domain as soon as it arrives, and protect the new account with two-factor authentication.

My tutorial on how to transfer a domain covers the receiving side in detail, for .com and .co.uk.

Step 6: approve the transfer and wait

Watch the inbox of the domain’s contact address: the new registrar, and sometimes Hostinger, may email you to confirm the transfer. Answer them, then leave everything alone. Hostinger says a transfer can take up to seven days.

While it runs, do not change the nameservers or the records, and do not cancel anything at Hostinger. Your site and your email keep using the same zone the whole time, so visitors and clients notice nothing.

Step 7: move the DNS zone, then test the site and email

When the domain shows as active in your new account, the registration has moved. The DNS may not have: check which nameservers the domain uses. If they are still Hostinger’s, the zone in hPanel is still the one answering. Move it the same day, because that zone now stays online only for as long as Hostinger keeps it:

1. Recreate every record from your copy in the new registrar’s DNS page, with the same values. Keep the TTLs at 300 for now.
2. Switch the nameservers to the new registrar’s own. Registrars usually quote up to 48 hours for this, but since both zones hold the same records, every visitor gets the right answer meanwhile.
3. Test. Open the site with and without www, send an email to an address on the domain and reply from it, then check the records directly:

$ dig +short yourdomain.co.uk NS
$ dig +short yourdomain.co.uk A
$ dig +short yourdomain.co.uk MX

4. Tidy up. After a couple of days without problems, put the TTLs back to 3600, then cancel the Hostinger services you no longer use.

Your checklist, and when to hand it over

Before you call the move finished:

1. The domain is not expired, DNSSEC is off, and a .com is over 60 days old.
2. Every DNS record is copied, and the TTLs were lowered a day ahead.
3. The transfer lock and privacy protection are off in Domain Overview.
4. You have the EPP code, or you changed the IPS tag of a .co.uk.
5. The transfer is paid at the new registrar, with the current nameservers kept.
6. The confirmation emails are answered, and nothing was touched until the transfer completed.
7. The zone is recreated, the nameservers are switched, and the site and email are tested.
8. Auto-renew and privacy are on at the new registrar, and the Hostinger plans you no longer need are cancelled last.

You do not need anyone for a standard transfer: it is two toggles, a code and some patience. Hand it over when the stakes are higher than the job: the domain sits in a Hostinger account you cannot open, such as a former web designer’s (my guide to getting your domain back from a web designer covers that case), your email depends on records nobody can explain, or the website has to leave Hostinger at the same time. Connecting the domain is also part of every website I deliver.