_for-sale
A _for-sale record is a public, machine-readable way of saying that a domain name is for sale, without needing a parked page or a forum post to say so. It is a TXT record published on the name _for-sale under the domain itself, so a domain called example.com publishes it at _for-sale.example.com. It is described in RFC 10023, written by Marco Davids of SIDN Labs and published in July 2026 as an Informational document, which means it is a documented convention, not an Internet standard. It is also registered in IANA's list of underscore names, which is what stops it clashing with someone else's use of the same name.
| Name | Type | Value |
|---|---|---|
| _for-sale | TXT | "v=FORSALE1;furi=https://example.com/buy" |
| _for-sale | TXT | "v=FORSALE1;fval=USD750" |
| _for-sale | TXT | "v=FORSALE1;ftxt=Eligibility criteria apply." |
Strictly, only the version tag is required, but the RFC recommends adding at least one tag, so the first row alone already says something useful. The other two are optional extras. Three records at the same name is normal here, the reason is in the next section.
One tag per record
Every record has to start with v=FORSALE1;, written exactly like that, capitals included and without spaces. After it comes at most one tag with its value, and a record that carries two is not valid. To say more, publish more records, which is allowed: several _for-sale records at the same name are fine, and even the same tag may appear in more than one of them, for instance two ftxt notes, as long as no two records are identical. Someone reading the set may use one of them or several. A record without the correct version tag is not treated as a for-sale signal at all, though a human reading it may still learn something from it.
The four tags
| Tag | What it carries |
|---|---|
| furi | One URL for more information or for making contact. https, mailto and tel are among the recommended kinds. |
| fval | A price: a currency code in capitals followed by an amount, such as USD750. |
| ftxt | A short free-text note for a human reader, up to 239 bytes. UTF-8 is recommended, so it is not limited to plain ASCII, but a character outside ASCII takes two to four of those bytes, which leaves room for fewer characters. |
| fcod | A code whose meaning is agreed between the parties involved, for example a registry that uses it to send people to the right registrar's sale page. A recognisable prefix is suggested but not required. |
A record with a valid version tag and nothing else, or with content that cannot be understood, is still read as "this domain is for sale", unless whoever is reading it has a policy that says otherwise.
What a real set looks like
When this page was written, on 14 October 2026, a dig of the demonstration set published for the RFC, _for-sale.example.nl, returned seven TXT records at once: three ftxt notes, one fcod, one fval, one furi, and one line without a version tag, which simply says it is not part of the record and is ignored, exactly as described above. One of the three notes consists of non-ASCII characters, and dig printed it as a row of decimal escapes such as \226\156\168. That is only how DNS tools display bytes outside plain ASCII, the stored text is ordinary UTF-8, and the three bytes in that example are the single character U+2728, a sparkle. Whoever reads the record is expected to work with the raw bytes, not with the escaped display form. A set like this can change or disappear at any time, so treat it as a snapshot, and run dig TXT _for-sale.example.nl yourself if you want to see what it says now.
Keep the TTL short, and take it down again
The RFC recommends a TTL of 3600 seconds or less, and the same TTL for every _for-sale record, so that a change reaches everyone reasonably quickly. When the domain is no longer for sale, the record is meant to be removed. Publishing one does not oblige you to sell, and you can withdraw it later.
A public price tag deserves a little caution
Anyone can read this record, including people who collect contact details and send unsolicited mail, so an email address or phone number in furi is published to all of them. The RFC also says that software must not send a visitor onwards to the address in furi without asking, that a displayed price should come with a disclaimer, and that automated systems should not commit to a purchase based on the price alone. It does not describe any way to check that whoever published the record is really entitled to sell the domain, so the record is a hint, not proof of anything.
Checking and building one
Expert Tools' _for-sale check reads a domain's records the way the RFC asks, as text rather than escapes, with the byte count next to each value, and its wizard builds a set of records, emoji and all, in the two forms a panel or a zone file may want. Whatever you publish, run the check afterwards: if the text reads back as you wrote it, it worked.
Who actually reads it
The RFC names registries, people looking at a domain's DNS, and services that report whether a name is available, all to be used with due caution. How many registrars, marketplaces or parked pages act on the record today is not something this page can promise, so treat it as a convention that costs one line in your zone and may or may not reach a given buyer.
Source: RFC 10023, The "_for-sale" Underscored and Globally Scoped DNS Node Name.