How to Renew SSL Certificate for my Website

Renewing your SSL certificate for website is the same process as buying one. The real reason to do it before the deadline, not after: the moment your certificate expires, your visitors don’t get a polite reminder. They get a full-page warning telling them your site isn’t safe, and most will leave rather than click through.

This guide walks through the full SSL renewal steps — from generating a CSR to installing the reissued certificate — plus when to start, what it costs, and what happens if you miss the deadline.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you start:

• Time matters more than ever. With shorter validity periods now standard, note your renewal date as soon as a certificate is issued — don’t wait for a last-minute warning to act.
• Renew before the expiry date, not after. This is because it serves as a trust seal for your customers, and a frozen or expired trust seal isn’t a pleasant sight.

What happens if you forget to renew SSL Certificate?

SSL certificates don’t last forever. As of 15 March 2026, the maximum validity for a publicly trusted certificate is roughly 200 days — down from the old 1-3 year DigiCert / 1-5 year Sectigo terms — and that’s set to shrink further, to 100 days from 2027 and 47 days by 2029, under the CA/Browser Forum’s Ballot SC-081v3. When yours is close to expiring, SSL certificate renewal is how you keep your site’s padlock, trust seal, and encrypted connection working without interruption.

Once a certificate lapses, browsers stop trusting the connection immediately — there’s no grace period. Visitors see a hard warning (“Your connection is not private”) rather than a soft notice, and most will leave rather than click through. Beyond the trust hit, an expired certificate means the connection is no longer encrypted, which puts any data exchanged with your site at risk.

If your certificate has already expired, the fix is the same renewal process below — an expired certificate is treated as a full reissuance, not a special case, so there’s nothing extra you need to do beyond following the steps.

To understand this better, read our article on the Risks of Not Having an SSL Certificate.

So what needs to be done so that the website is secured again?
(Simple: Renew your SSL Certificate and secure the website from dangerous pop up that displays in the web browser)

Renew SSL Certificate Without Automation

The process of SSL certificate renewal is the same as purchasing a new one. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Purchase your SSL renewal

• Sign up or log in to your https.in account.
• Purchase the SSL certificate you want to renew — choose the same brand and type you’re currently using (RapidSSL, GeoTrust, Sectigo, DigiCert, Thawte), or click Renew Now against your certificate directly.
• Select the validity (1-3 Years for DigiCert & 1-5 years for Sectigo)
• Make the payment to complete the order.

Step 2: Generate a new Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

• Generate a CSR to renew your SSL certificate.
• Fill in all the required details.

• Follow our CSR generation guide, or ask your web host to generate it for you.

Step 3: Complete domain control validation (DCV)

• Go to dashboard-> My Orders → Pending Enrollments, and click Complete process next to your Order ID- > select the validation method -> select admin email address -> fill in the necessary details and submit to issue the certificate.

Step 4: Install the certificate on your server

• Once issued, install the certificate on your server.
• Follow our SSL Installation guide for step-by-step help.
• Stuck installing it? https.in provides free Technical Assistance — we’ll do it for you.

Things to keep in mind during renewal

1. Your information needs to be re-validated during renewal — nothing carries over automatically.
2. This means completing DCV again, via email, HTTP-based validation, or DNS-based validation, whichever method you selected during activation.
3. If you have an OV or EV certificate, your company information will be verified again by the CA, which may require resubmitting documents.
4. Once approved, the certificate is emailed to you — install it on your server for the renewal to take effect. If you’re load-balanced, install it on every server handling traffic for your domain.

Renew SSL Certificate With Automation

As SSL certificate validity periods become shorter, you may need to renew your certificates several times a year. If you manage multiple websites or certificates, keeping track of every expiry date, completing validation, and installing each renewed certificate manually can take time and increase the risk of missing a renewal.

SSL certificate automation removes this burden. It monitors your certificates and handles the renewal process automatically, helping prevent certificate expiry and reducing the need for repeated manual work.

With AutoCert by https.in, the ACME agent automatically starts the renewal process before your certificate expires, so you can keep your certificates renewed without constantly checking expiry dates.

Setting up AutoCert starts the same way as any other order:

• Sign up or log in to https.in and purchase or renew the SSL certificate you want on autopilot. (AutoCert only supports DigiCert brands)
• Select the validity (1-3 Years for DigiCert) (AutoCert only support DigiCert brands.)
• In Order Process 1 (Add to Cart), select the “AutoCert Premium Support” checkbox.

• Click “Yes” and proceed to complete the payment.

• After payment, go to My Account → My Orders → Pending Enrollments, and click Complete Setup next to your Order ID.

To finish setup, connect with our technical assistance team — this is a one-time step. After that, every future renewal, validation, and installation runs automatically.

People Also Ask:

#1 Do I need a new CSR when renewing SSL?

Yes, you do. Every SSL certificate renewal requires a new CSR/key pair — there’s no way around it, and it’s also what security best practice recommends, since it generates a fresh key pair rather than reusing an old one.

If you cannot generate a CSR yourself, ask your web hosting provider to do it for you.

Once you have it, proceed with the SSL renewal steps above, but keep the same contact information you used previously for an OV/EV certificate. Matching details speed up the renewal process.

#2 How long does it take to renew SSL Certificate?

It’s useful to know how long SSL certificate renewal takes before you start. Since renewal follows the same process as issuing a brand-new certificate, the timeline depends on your validation level:

1. Domain Validation (DV) certificates typically issue in about 1-2 hours.
2. Organization Validation (OV) certificates take around 4-5 days.
3. Extended Validation (EV) certificates take about 1-2 weeks.

If your certificate is managed through AutoCert, the renewal process is automated and can be completed within minutes, without the need for manual renewal.

#3 Why do SSL Certificates Expire?

There have been long debates regarding why long-life certificates don’t exist, or why SSL certificates expire at all.

The short answer is “security.” A shorter-lived certificate limits how long a compromised key stays useful to an attacker, and it forces every renewal to use current encryption standards rather than ones that were current years earlier.

This is also why certificates keep getting shorter. Under the CA/Browser Forum’s Ballot SC-081v3 — approved unanimously by Apple, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and other Forum members — the maximum lifespan for a publicly trusted SSL/TLS certificate is being cut in phases: 200 days from 15 March 2026, 100 days from 15 March 2027, and 47 days by 15 March 2029. Certificates already issued keep their original validity; the shorter caps apply only to new certificates issued from each date onward.

In practical terms, this means SSL renewal will happen far more often than the old once-a-year (or once-every-few-years) rhythm most site owners are used to. It’s worth setting up expiry reminders — or automating renewal outright — now, rather than waiting until it becomes unavoidable.

#4 How do I know when my SSL certificate expires?

It’s easy to lose track of an expiry date, especially as shorter validity periods make renewals more frequent. Here’s a tool to make that easier — take a look at our

If you choose SSL certificate automation, you won’t need to keep checking the expiry date yourself. The ACME agent automatically monitors your certificate and starts the renewal process before it expires, helping ensure your certificate stays active without manual intervention.

#5 How do I fix an expired SSL certificate?

An expired SSL certificate can only be fixed one way: renew it. There’s no way to extend or revive an expired certificate — the only fix is to purchase and install a new one, following the same SSL certificate renewal process as any other renewal:

Steps to fix an expired SSL Certificate:

1. Choose the right SSL certificate for your website.
2. Select the validity period (up to the current industry cap of roughly 200 days).
3. Click on the “Renew Now” button.
4. Fill up all necessary details.
5. Click on the Continue button.
6. Review your SSL order.
7. Make the payment.
8. Complete domain control validation.
9. Deploy your SSL certificate on the server.

Once installed, the browser warning disappears immediately and your site is secure again.

Visit our page for any queries to renew your SSL Certificate!