How far in advance should I renew my domain?

Renew a domain at least 30-60 days before its expiry date. The practical minimum is 30 days: that leaves room to handle any payment failure, account access issue, or registrar problem without the domain actually lapsing. 60 days gives a comfortable buffer if you're also renewing an SSL certificate on a new cycle at the same time.

For business-critical domains -- your primary .com, your payment subdomain, any domain tied to an active email system -- many registrars recommend setting a multi-year renewal (2-5 years) so the risk window is as rare as possible. Auto-renewal reduces the chance of missing it, but check annually that the card on file is still valid and the renewal email goes to an active inbox. A reminder set independently of the registrar's auto-renewal emails catches the cases when auto-renewal silently fails.