Are you seeking out a way to switch your blog from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress? Well, you are at right place. If you are looking for migrating to WordPress.org, the process is same, internet often denotes self-hosted WordPress as wordpress.org.Many bloggers start their journey by creating their blog at WordPress.com. At WordPress.com, you can create your blog or a website for free which is hosted as a sub-domain on WordPress.com

While WordPress.com is a good platform, many bloggers choose to shift to a self-hosted WordPress. The reason is simple, self-hosted WordPress has more flexibility than WordPress.com, so why not shift?

Be it your WordPress.com website or blog, this guide will help you migrate from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.

Step 1: Export your data from WordPress.com

Importing is like taking backup of your content. To start exporting your data, you need to sign into your WordPress blog, click on My Site tab on upper left corner and then select settings in bottom left corner.

In the right, scroll down and click on “Export”.

Click on Export All button, because you want to migrate every piece of the content.

You can also select certain elements to export by using the drop-down arrow next to the Export All button.

Download the zip.

Note: The zip will be in small size (

Step 2: Extract the XML

Before we import, we have to extract the XML file from the zip. The importer on self-hosted WordPress supports only XML files, so uploading a compressed zip is ruled out.

Step 3: Import content to self-hosted WordPress.

Login into your self-hosted WordPress, navigate to Tool and click on Import.

Click the “Install Now” link located under the WordPress option.

This extension is needed for importing files from WordPress.com.

A success message will appear on the Import screen. Click the “Run Importer” link that is now available.

Select the file and click on Upload file and Import.

WordPress will then ask to assign authors to the posts from the site you are importing data from. You have the option to import the author directly, or you can create a new user to assign the posts to.

If you have any attachments, check“Download and import file attachments”

Click the “Submit” button to continue the import process.

Now your data from WordPress.com has been migrated to your self-hosted WordPress website.

Technically, the content and data will still be available on the WordPress.com subdomain until you delete the site. So to avoid the content duplicacy issues, it is recommended to delete it.

If you do not wish to delete your WordPress.com blog, you can make it private.

You can also redirect WordPress.com blog visitors to your new self-hosted blog using site redirect service by WordPress, which is a paid service.

This is how you can migrate WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted WordPress domain.

Please note that after transferring data from WordPress.com, the data will appear on your self-hosted WordPress but not the theme.
You have to install the theme manually.

For any queries, you can drop a comment below.