Fail to transfer domain in Vercel

Help
1

I’m trying to transfer my domain sashaproduction.ca from IONOS to Vercel.

The domain is already added to my Vercel account as an external domain and is pointing to my Vercel project (Registrar: Third Party, Nameservers: Third Party, Edge Network: Active).

When I go through the “Transfer in” flow in the Dashboard and submit all required information (including a fresh EPP/Auth Code from IONOS), the UI shows a generic error: Failed to initiate domain transfer.

In the browser console I also see these errors:

  • Failed to get contact verification status for domain sashaproduction.ca DomainNotFirstPartyError: Domain sashaproduction.ca is not registered with Vercel
  • Failed to get renewal price for domain dwV2ESAI11CxvVz InvalidDomainNameError: dwV2ESAI11CxvVz is not a valid domain name.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Domain sashaproduction.ca is registered with IONOS and is already added to Vercel as an external domain (points to my Vercel project, works fine over HTTPS).

  2. In IONOS:

    • Domain transfer lock is disabled.

    • A new Auth/EPP Code is generated and copied.

    • The domain is older than 60 days.

  3. In Vercel Dashboard:

    • Go to Domains → Transfer in.

    • Enter sashaproduction.ca and the EPP/Auth Code from IONOS.

    • Fill in contact details and confirm the transfer.

  4. After the last step, the UI shows “Failed to transfer in” and the console logs the two errors mentioned above.

There is no additional error message in the UI that explains what exactly failed.

Configuration details

  • Current registrar: IONOS

  • Domain: sashaproduction.ca (.ca TLD)

  • DNS: Currently still managed by IONOS, A / CNAME records point to Vercel, site is live.

  • Goal: Fully transfer the domain registration (not just DNS) from IONOS to Vercel, so that Vercel is the registrar.

Has anyone seen this behavior when transferring in a .ca domain?

Is there anything I might be missing in the transfer setup, or is this likely a bug with the “Transfer in” flow / API for .ca domains? Any guidance or ideas on how to get more detailed error output (or successfully trigger the transfer) would be appreciated.

2

The domain troubleshooting guide can help with most custom domain configuration issues. You might be able to use that guide to solve it before a human is available to help you. Then you can come back here and share the answer for bonus points.

You can also use v0 to narrow down the possibilities.

5

Hi, I dug into this and it turns out we cannot support .ca domains for transfers

We’ve updated the docs with full info here

Better UI during the transfer process to make this clear will be coming soon