Transferring an already registered domain name entails changing the domain name registrar that provides the domain name registration service, so after the transfer itself, you’ll have to manage things like renewal fees or DNS resource record updates through the new domain name registrar. The transfer procedure is standard with most Top-Level Domain extensions. Certain country-code extensions are more specific and entail different procedures, but in the general case transferring a domain name entails a few necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain. The lock is a security feature, which is being adopted by more and more domain name registry operators. It’s a default feature supported by all generic top-level domain names. If a domain name is locked, it won’t be possible to start a transfer procedure, so no one can even try to steal your domain name. The domain lock can be annulled only through the account where the domain is registered in the first place and all new domains that support this feature are locked by default when they are registered.