Failure to Pay for Domain Name

What Happens when you don't pay for your domain name?

You lose your website, aka it's not live anymore. However, you can still transfer due to expiration or non-renewal (assuming you've paid for a previoius registration) if you are within the Redemption Grace Period. If you are past the Redemption Grace Period you will need to restore your initial domain before transfering it, which may include fees. Source

Research and discuss the process ICANN suggests for handling domain name ownership default

First contact your Registrar or Reseller (you can do this through whois.icann.org. If you've defaulted and are past the 30 day grace period your domain name will be up for grabs to anyone who wants it, which it could be spendy to get it back from (or impossible, if they don't want to sell it.) Source

Research your domain host provider's policy for failure to renew your domain name ownership.

Initially, right after I fail to pay, my website will go down, if i renew after it has expired, it will take a couple hours to re-upload from the server. The server will store the site for a couple months then delete it permanently. Source

Discuss the steps your provider will go through if you fail to renew your domain name.

To reinstate a domain after it's expired, first thing is to call the billing department and get a payment set back up. Source