Your IP
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| Region | |
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| ZIP Code | |
| Timezone | |
| Lat / Lon | |
| ISP | |
| Organization | |
| AS Number |
Approximate IP location
| Country | |
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| ZIP Code | |
| Timezone | |
| Lat / Lon | |
| ISP | |
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| AS Number |
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique numerical label assigned to every device connected to a network. It serves two main functions: identifying the host or network interface, and providing the location of the host in the network. Every time you visit a website, send an email, or stream a video, your IP address is used to route data between your device and the internet. There are two versions in use today: IPv4, which uses a 32-bit address written as four decimal numbers (e.g. 192.168.1.1), and IPv6, which uses a 128-bit address in hexadecimal notation (e.g. 2001:4860:4860::8888) to accommodate the vast number of internet-connected devices.
A public IP address is the address visible to the outside world — it's assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and is what websites, servers, and services see when you connect to them. This is the address shown above. A private IP address is used within your local network (your home or office router) and is not routable on the public internet. Private IP ranges are 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16. Your router receives one public IP from your ISP and uses NAT (Network Address Translation) to share it across all your private devices. This is why multiple devices in your home share a single public IP address.
IP geolocation is the process of determining the geographic location of a device based on its IP address. It works by mapping IP address ranges to geographic regions using databases maintained by regional internet registries (RIRs) and enriched with data from ISPs, network operators, and user-supplied corrections. Geolocation data typically includes country, region, city, ZIP code, latitude/longitude, timezone, ISP, and autonomous system (AS) number. Important caveat: IP geolocation is not GPS-level accuracy. It identifies the location of the ISP's infrastructure serving your connection, not your physical device. VPNs, proxies, and mobile networks can cause the reported location to differ significantly from your actual location.
Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the company that provides your internet connection — examples include Comcast, BT, Jio, or Vodafone. The ISP field shows which provider owns the IP address range your connection uses. An AS number (Autonomous System Number) identifies a group of IP networks operated by a single entity under a unified routing policy. Each ISP, university, or large corporation typically has one or more AS numbers. For example, Google's primary AS is AS15169. AS numbers are the building blocks of BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), the routing protocol that determines how data travels between networks across the entire internet.
Your IP address can reveal your approximate location — typically at the city or regional level — but not your precise street address or home. What IP geolocation actually shows is the location of the ISP's Point of Presence (PoP) serving your connection, which may be tens or hundreds of kilometres from where you physically are. Mobile ISPs often route traffic through central hubs, making location data even less precise. Law enforcement with legal authority can request subscriber information from ISPs to associate an IP address with a physical address — but for most everyday uses, an IP address only narrows location down to a city or metro area.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) routes your internet traffic through a server operated by the VPN provider, replacing your real public IP address with the IP address of that server. Websites and services you visit see the VPN server's IP address, not your actual ISP-assigned address. This can make it appear as if you're connecting from a different country entirely. VPNs also encrypt your traffic between your device and the VPN server, preventing your ISP from seeing what sites you visit. Common use cases include accessing geo-restricted content, improving privacy from advertisers and ISPs, and securing connections on public Wi-Fi networks.
Many servers, databases, and admin panels use IP allowlists for access control. You need your current public IP to add it to the allowlist before connecting via SSH, VPN, or a web-based admin panel.
Hosting a game server or setting up port forwarding requires knowing your public IP address. Friends connecting to your server need this address, and your router's port forwarding rules use it to route traffic correctly.
Connecting to your home or office PC remotely requires your public IP address (or a dynamic DNS hostname pointing to it). You'll need this address to configure remote access software like RDP, VNC, or TeamViewer.
When troubleshooting connectivity problems, knowing your public IP helps diagnose whether issues are local, ISP-related, or site-specific. It's also useful for confirming that a VPN is connected and routing traffic correctly.
Email deliverability, ad platforms, and fraud detection systems evaluate your IP's reputation. Checking your IP lets you verify whether it's listed on spam blacklists, which can explain email delivery failures or blocked transactions.
When testing APIs that require IP whitelisting or building webhooks that need to accept traffic from your server's IP, you need the exact public IP to configure the allowlist or share with your integration partner.
Most residential internet connections use dynamic IP addresses — your ISP assigns you an IP from a pool, and it can change when your router reconnects, after a power cycle, or periodically by ISP policy. Businesses and servers typically have static IP addresses that don't change, which is required for hosting servers or maintaining consistent allowlist entries. If you need a static IP at home, contact your ISP — most offer it as a paid add-on.
IP geolocation identifies the location of the ISP's routing infrastructure, not your physical device. Mobile carriers and large ISPs often route traffic through regional hubs that may be far from you. If you're using a VPN or proxy, the location will reflect the VPN server's location. Geolocation databases are also not perfectly accurate — they're updated regularly but can lag behind ISP infrastructure changes. For city-level accuracy, the data is generally within 50–100 km for most locations.
Yes — every web request you make includes your IP address in the packet headers so the server knows where to send the response. Website owners, server administrators, and analytics platforms can see and log your IP. It is also visible to your ISP, and in some jurisdictions can be obtained by law enforcement via legal process. Using a VPN or Tor browser routes your traffic through intermediary servers, masking your real IP from websites but not from the VPN provider or exit node operator.
IPv6 is the successor to IPv4, using 128-bit addresses to provide a vastly larger address space (340 undecillion addresses vs IPv4's 4.3 billion). The IP shown above will tell you whether you have an IPv6 address. Many ISPs now assign both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (called dual-stack). IPv6 addresses look like 2001:db8::1 — a series of hexadecimal groups separated by colons. If you see an IPv4 address (four decimal numbers), your connection is IPv4-only or your ISP is using a transition mechanism like NAT64.
The most common methods are: VPN — routes traffic through a server in another location, replacing your IP with the VPN server's IP; Tor — routes traffic through multiple volunteer-operated nodes, making it very difficult to trace back to your IP (but slow); Proxy server — similar to a VPN but typically without encryption; Mobile data — switching from Wi-Fi to your mobile carrier gives you a different IP. Simply restarting your router may also give you a new dynamic IP from your ISP's pool, though this is not guaranteed.
IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses written as four decimal octets (e.g. 203.0.113.45), supporting about 4.3 billion unique addresses. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses in hexadecimal (e.g. 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334), supporting 340 undecillion addresses — effectively unlimited for practical purposes. IPv4 address exhaustion led to widespread use of NAT (Network Address Translation), where many devices share a single public IP. IPv6 eliminates the need for NAT and has built-in security improvements. Both protocols coexist today through dual-stack networking, where devices have both an IPv4 and IPv6 address simultaneously.