Transferring an active domain entails switching the domain name registrar that provides the registration service, so after the transfer itself, you’ll have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS resource record modifications through the new company. The transfer process itself is standard with most universal and country-specific domain extensions. Certain country-code extensions are more specific and entail different procedures, but in the general case transferring a domain name involves several necessary procedures and one of them is unlocking the domain. The lock is a security option, which is being embraced by more and more domain name registry operators. 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 steal your domain name. The lock can be annulled only through the account where the domain name is registered in the first place and all new domain names that support this functionality are locked by default when they are registered.