EnterraHost
To transfer a .co.za domain you release the lock at the registrar holding it, start the move here, and approve it by email. Only the sponsoring registrar changes. The registrant, the person or company the name belongs to, stays as it was.
Most transfer guides are written for .com, and a few of their steps do not fit. Transfer rules are set per extension, and the .co.za registry sets its own.
Before you transfer a .co.za domain
Release the registrar lock. That switch is in the control panel of the registrar holding the domain, and a locked name cannot move, so it is the first thing to check.
Most extensions then issue a transfer code, which many registrars call an EPP code or an auth code. Others do not use one and need the lock released only. .co.za sits in the second group, so there is no code waiting in your inbox to copy.
Look at the registrant email address on the domain before you start. The approval request goes there, and if it is an address nobody can read, the move stalls until that is fixed.
The approval email is what completes it
Approving the move is not optional, and nobody can approve it on your behalf. The request arrives at the registrant contact address, and the transfer finishes only after it is approved.
Nothing changes for visitors during the move. Your nameservers keep pointing where they did, so the website and the mail keep answering.
What a .co.za move is not charged for
Do not assume a transfer adds a year to the registration. Many extensions do add one on completion, and the transfer fee usually goes with it. Others carry the existing expiry date across unchanged, and .co.za is one of those. There is nothing to pay to move the name, and the date it expires is the date it already had.
The same fact makes a transfer a poor way to rescue a name that is nearly out of time. If the expiry date is close, settle the renewal separately, at whichever registrar holds the domain on the day.
When the move can be refused
A recently registered or recently transferred name can be held for a short period before it is allowed to move again. That hold comes from the registry, not from us and not from the registrar losing the name.
A transfer also stops when the domain is still locked or when the approval is never given. Either way the name stays where it started, with the expiry date it had, and you can begin again once the cause is cleared.
Once the domain is here, the nameservers are yours to set. Point the name at hosting anywhere, leave it on our DNS and change only the records that matter, or connect a Cloudflare zone. Every extension in the domain name catalog works the same way, and a transfer in lives in the same panel as a registration.
If a move fails and the reason is not obvious, open a support ticket with the domain, the state it is in and the exact message you saw. If the domain is registered with us we can see where the transfer has reached and tell you which step is holding it, and if it is not, the registry and the losing registrar are the two places that can say.