Knowledge base

Use your own Hetzner DNS account to serve your domains' DNS

Generate a Read & Write API token in the Hetzner Console and connect it, so your domains' DNS is served from your own Hetzner project.

What connecting it does for you

Connecting your own Hetzner account lets a domain's DNS be served from your account instead of ours. You keep the zone, the bill and the vendor dashboard; we create and update the records your sites and mailboxes need, so you do not copy them by hand.

Before you start

A Hetzner account with your zones in the Hetzner Console. Hetzner has moved DNS into the Hetzner Console, and the older standalone DNS Console uses a different kind of token that no longer works for this — if your zones are still there, move them to the Hetzner Console first. Tokens belong to a project, so use the project that holds your zones.

1. Create the key at Hetzner

In the Hetzner Console, open the project that holds your zones, choose Security in the left sidebar, then API tokens at the top, and Generate API token. Give it a description, choose Read & Write — a read-only token can list your zones and cannot change a record — and generate it. Copy the token: Hetzner does not show it again once the window closes.

2. Connect it here

Open Integrations in your dashboard and choose Connect an account. Pick Your own DNS as the group and Hetzner DNS as the account, fill in API token, and press Connect account.

We test what you paste before anything is saved. A key that does not work is never stored, and the answer says what was wrong with it. A key that works is kept encrypted in our secrets vault — never in our database — and is never shown again, not even to you.

What happens next

  • On any domain, open its DNS tab and choose this account as where the domain's
  • DNS is served from. We create the zone there if it does not exist and write the records the domain's sites and mail need.

  • When something on our side changes what a record must say — you move a site, switch CDN or
  • add a mailbox — we update the record on your account.

  • To finish the move, your domain's nameservers must point at Hetzner. If the domain is
  • registered with us, or at a registrar you have connected, we set them for you; otherwise the domain's page shows the nameservers to set.

  • When you connect, we check that the key can list your zones, read records and change records.
  • The checklist beside the connection shows which of those we could confirm.

If it does not connect

Your zones do not appear. The token belongs to a different project, or the zones are still in the old DNS Console. Generate the token in the project that holds them.

Record changes are refused. The token was created as Read. Generate a Read & Write token and connect it.

It says the key was rejected. Almost always one of three things: a space or a line break copied with it, a key that has expired, or a key that was revoked or regenerated after you copied it. Create a fresh one and paste it again.

It connects, but something later fails. The key authenticates but lacks a permission the action needs. Create a new key with the permissions listed above, then disconnect the old connection and connect the new key.

Disconnecting

Open Integrations, find the account and press Disconnect. That deletes the stored key at once. Anything that was using it stops at its next action, and the screens that depended on it say so rather than failing quietly.

Disconnecting does not undo what was already done — records, deployments or settings we changed on your account stay as they are. If you think the key itself may have leaked, also revoke it at the vendor; disconnecting removes our copy, not theirs.

Latest from the blog

What we have been writing about hosting, SEO and running sites at scale.

SEO and Link Building from the Hosting Layer: A 2026 Operator's View

How hosting shapes indexing and link equity in 2026: keeping pages indexed, vetting aged domains before you build on them, link building without a footprint, and an honest line on what infrastructure can and cannot do for SEO.

Read the post

Making WordPress Fast and Secure: A Performance and Plugin Checklist

A practical checklist for fast, secure WordPress: server-level caching, a per-site object cache, the handful of plugins worth running, keeping the stack current, and the WooCommerce pages you must never cache.

Read the post

How to Choose Managed Web Hosting in 2026: A Buyer's Guide

What actually separates good managed hosting from a cheap box with a control panel — migrations, backups, isolation, real caching and honest scaling — and how to judge it before you commit.

Read the post

Read the blog

Still stuck?

Support is included on every plan, the desk is open 24 hours a day, and you can write to us in any of our 58 languages — we answer you in yours.

Contact support All articles