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Who should own your domain, your hosting and your files

You should, all three, and in writing. Here is what each one is, how to check whose name is on it today, and what to ask for before you pay a designer.

Aditya Vashistha

By Aditya Vashistha, quietlybuildWritten To be checked again by 25 September 2027

The short answer

You should: all three, and in writing. Your business should be the registrant of the domain, the holder of the hosting account and the owner of the copyright in the site. Your designer should have access, not ownership.

It sounds like a technicality until the day you need to change something and the person who holds the account has stopped answering. Each of the three can be checked today.

The domain

The domain is your address, such as yourbusiness.co.uk. It is registered to one person or organisation, the registrant, through a company called a registrar. Whoever is the registrant decides where the address points, and can move it.

ICANN, which oversees the system for addresses such as .com, is plain about it: the registrant must keep their contact details accurate, and “will assume sole responsibility for the registration and use” of the name.

When a designer registers your domain in their own name, it is theirs on paper, however friendly the arrangement. If they close their business, miss a renewal or stop replying, the address printed on your vans, cards and invoices goes with them.

How to check yours

  • Look it up: Nominet’s lookup (opens in a new tab) for names ending in .uk, ICANN’s lookup (opens in a new tab) for most others.
  • The registrant’s name is sometimes hidden for privacy, but the registrar is always shown. Log in there. If you can’t, find out who can.
  • The registration should be in your business’s name, on your card, in an account you log in to. Give your designer their own access, never your password.

If it isn’t, ask for it to be moved into your name now, while everyone is friendly. ICANN’s guidance for registrants says a registrar must give you the code to move a name to another registrar within five calendar days of asking.

The hosting

Hosting is the computer your site’s files live on, rented by the month or the year. The account belongs to whoever signed up and pays. Whoever holds it can take the site down, move it, or let it lapse.

The account should be in your business’s name and paid with your card, with the designer invited as a user you can remove when the work ends. That costs you nothing extra, and it means the site keeps running whatever happens to the person who built it.

There is one fair exception. While a site is being built, its preview often runs on the designer’s own account, at no cost to you, because there is nothing to hand over yet. What matters is where the finished site lives on the day it goes live.

The files and the copyright

The files are the site itself: its pages, styles, pictures and code. Ask for a complete copy at each stage and at launch, so you are never waiting on anyone to get your own site back.

Holding the files is not the same as owning them. In the UK, the person who makes a commissioned work owns its copyright unless you agree otherwise in writing (Intellectual Property Office). An assignment of copyright only counts if it is in writing and signed by, or for, the person assigning it (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 90(3)). Elsewhere the default differs from country to country, which is one more reason to put it in writing wherever you are.

So the contract should say that the copyright passes to you, and when. Photographs, fonts and stock images carry licences of their own: ask whose name each licence is in, and whether it covers your use.

A checklist for today

  1. Look up your domain. Is the registrant your business?
  2. Can you log in to the registrar yourself?
  3. Is the hosting account in your business’s name, on your card?
  4. Do you have a complete, recent copy of the site’s files?
  5. Does your contract assign the copyright to you, in writing?
  6. Is your email on the domain set up in an account you control?

Six yeses and you own your website. Any no is worth fixing this month, before you need it.

What I promise my own clients

In every agreement, word for word:

Your domain and every file are yours from the first day. The hosting goes into your name at launch.

Until launch, the preview runs on my account at no cost to you. At launch the site moves into an account in your name, on your card, with me invited as a user. The copyright in the finished site is assigned to you when your final payment reaches me. The terms say so, before you sign anything.

Sources

  1. ICANN, “Registrants’ Benefits and Responsibilities”. Read 25 September 2026. Open it (opens in a new tab)
  2. ICANN, “FAQs for Registrants: Transferring Your Domain Name”. Read 25 September 2026. Open it (opens in a new tab)
  3. Nominet, domain lookup for .uk names. Read 25 September 2026. Open it (opens in a new tab)
  4. ICANN, registration data lookup. Read 25 September 2026. Open it (opens in a new tab)
  5. Intellectual Property Office, “Ownership of copyright works”, GOV.UK, published 19 August 2014. Read 25 September 2026. Open it (opens in a new tab)
  6. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 90, legislation.gov.uk. Open it (opens in a new tab)