Transferring an active domain name involves switching the registrar that provides the registration service, so after the transfer itself, you will have to manage things like renewal fees or DNS entry updates through the new registrar. The transfer process is standard with most generic and country-code domain name extensions. Some country-code extensions are more specific and involve different procedures, but in the general case transferring a domain entails a few necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain. The lock is a security option, which is being adopted by more and more domain name registry operators. It is a default feature supported by all generic Top-Level Domains. If a domain name is locked, it will not be possible to initiate a transfer process, so no one can even try to take your domain name. The domain lock can be removed only through the account where the domain name is registered and all new domains that support this option are locked by default when they are registered.