Transfer Route 53 Hosted Zone to Lightsail Domains and DNS

To transfer records from a Route 53 Hosted Zone to a Lightsail Domains and DNS Zone, you'll need to follow these steps:

1. Create a DNS zone in Lightsail for your domain if you haven't already done so.

2. Manually copy the DNS records from your Route 53 hosted zone to the Lightsail DNS zone. You'll need to recreate each record (A, CNAME, MX, etc.) in the Lightsail DNS management interface.

3. Once all records are copied, you need to update the domain's nameservers to point to the Lightsail DNS zone. This process is called delegation. In Lightsail, you can use the automatic domain delegation feature if your domain is registered with Route 53 in the same AWS account.

4. To delegate the domain to Lightsail:

   • Ensure the domain is in the same AWS account as your Lightsail account.
   • Make sure you have permission to manage domains in Route 53.
   • The Route 53 hosted zone for the domain should be empty (except for SOA and NS records).

5. If automatic delegation is successful, Lightsail will update the domain's nameservers in Route 53 to those of the Lightsail DNS zone and delete the Route 53 hosted zone for you.

6. If automatic delegation fails, you'll need to manually update the nameservers for your domain to those provided by Lightsail. You can do this in the Route 53 console under the domain's registration settings.

7. Wait for the DNS changes to propagate, which can take up to 48 hours.

8. Once propagation is complete and you've verified that everything is working correctly with the Lightsail DNS, you can safely delete the Route 53 hosted zone if it wasn't automatically removed.

Remember, DNS changes can take time to propagate globally, so it's important to plan for potential downtime and test thoroughly before and after the transfer. Also, be cautious when deleting hosted zones, as this action can lead to domain accessibility issues if not handled carefully.
Sources
RegisteredDomainDelegationInfo - Amazon Lightsail
AWS Lightsail / Route 53 | AWS re:Post