Vercel automatically provisions SSL certificates for every deployment and custom domain, and enforces HTTPS by default with no separate toggle needed — plain HTTP requests are automatically redirected.
Custom domains
Once you add a custom domain under Project Settings → Domains, Vercel handles certificate issuance and HTTPS enforcement automatically as soon as DNS verification completes — there's no manual certificate management step at all.
What's actually left to check
Since Vercel handles this entirely, the only real troubleshooting is DNS-side — confirm your domain's records match exactly what Vercel's domain configuration instructions specify, since a mismatched or incomplete DNS setup is the only thing that would prevent certificate issuance.
Why Vercel gives you effectively no manual certificate configuration at all
Vercel's platform is deliberately designed so certificate issuance, installation, and renewal happen entirely automatically with zero user-facing configuration options — a deliberate simplicity trade-off that removes an entire category of possible misconfiguration at the cost of any manual control over certificate specifics.
What to check when a custom domain's HTTPS status seems stuck
As with other managed platforms, a custom domain that isn't showing HTTPS as active after a reasonable wait almost always traces back to a DNS configuration issue — Vercel's domain settings panel typically surfaces a specific, actionable message about what's blocking verification rather than leaving you to guess.
How Vercel's preview deployments handle HTTPS differently from production
Preview deployments generated for branches or pull requests receive their own automatically issued certificates on Vercel's preview subdomains, following the same automatic pattern as production — no separate configuration is needed to get HTTPS working correctly across both preview and production environments.
What Vercel's Edge Network means for how quickly HTTPS activates globally
Vercel's global edge network means certificate provisioning and HTTPS activation typically propagate quickly across all edge locations simultaneously, rather than requiring separate activation in different geographic regions — a practical benefit of the platform's globally distributed architecture.
How environment variables interact with HTTPS-dependent configuration in a Vercel deployment
If your application uses environment variables to configure API base URLs or similar settings, confirming production environment variables explicitly use https:// values, separate from any development environment variables that might reasonably use http://localhost, avoids accidentally shipping an insecure URL into a production deployment.
Why redeploying sometimes resolves an apparently stuck domain verification
Triggering a fresh deployment after a DNS change can prompt Vercel to re-check domain verification status immediately, rather than waiting for its next scheduled check — a reasonable troubleshooting step if a domain's status appears stuck despite DNS being correctly configured.
A final thought on Vercel's zero-configuration philosophy specifically
Vercel's near-total automation of this entire category of configuration reflects the platform's broader design philosophy of minimizing infrastructure decisions developers need to make — a meaningful convenience, though worth understanding the underlying mechanics covered in this guide for the rare occasion something does need troubleshooting.
What Vercel's team plans change about domain and certificate management
Vercel's team and enterprise plans add collaborative domain management features, letting multiple team members manage custom domains and view certificate status, without changing the underlying automatic certificate provisioning covered throughout this guide.
How this guide's automatic handling applies the same way across every supported framework
Vercel's automatic HTTPS handling operates at the platform's edge network level, entirely independent of whether your deployment uses Next.js, plain static HTML, or any other supported framework — the automatic certificate behavior described in this guide applies uniformly regardless of your specific framework choice.