Transferring an existing domain name entails switching the registrar company that handles the domain registration service, so after the transfer itself, you’ll have to manage things like renewal fees or DNS entry modifications through the new registrar company. The transfer process is standard with most TLD extensions. Some country-code extensions are more specific and involve different steps, but in the general case transferring a domain involves several necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain. The domain lock is a safety feature, which is being embraced by more and more registry organizations. It’s a standard feature supported by all gTLDs. If a domain name is locked, it won’t be possible to start a transfer process, so nobody can even try to take your domain. The domain lock can be removed only through the account where the domain is registered and all new domain names that support this option are locked by default the moment they are registered.