What is my IP address?
Your IP address is the address the websites you visit see when you connect, and this page shows it at the top, read from the connection that loaded the page. On a home or office network it is usually the address of the router, shared by every device behind it, not the private address your own device holds. It can change when you restart your router, switch networks or turn on a VPN or proxy.
How accurate is IP location?
IP location is accurate to the country most of the time, to the region less often and to the city only roughly. It is a database that guesses where an address block is used, and it is never a street address. It often points at the provider's nearest hub rather than at you, and mobile and satellite addresses can sit hundreds of miles from the device. The locations here come from our own copy of the data, refreshed monthly:
IP geolocation by DB-IP.
What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?
IPv4 addresses have four numbers separated by dots, such as 203.0.113.9, and there are about 4.3 billion of them, which is why providers share one between many customers. IPv6 addresses have eight groups of hexadecimal digits separated by colons, such as 2001:db8::1, and the space is large enough to give every device its own. A connection uses one or the other, and many networks give a device both. This page shows whichever your connection used, and looks up either.
What can an IP address reveal about me?
An IP address reveals the network you connect from and an approximate place, usually a city or a region. It does not reveal your name, your street address or what you do online, and the provider that runs the network is the only party that can tie the address to an account. The network name and the reverse DNS name often show the provider and sometimes the town, which is why the lookup prints them. The reverse DNS name is written by whoever runs the address's reverse DNS, so it is a hint and not proof of who operates the address.
How can a website tell I am using a proxy?
A site can only compare what it sees. It sees the address you connect from, the network that announces it, the reverse DNS name and the details your browser reports, such as its time zone and language. When those disagree, for example an address in one country with a browser time zone from another, or an address that belongs to a hosting network, the connection looks unusual. This page shows both sides, the address and what your browser reports, and it does not call any address a proxy: it states what the data says and stops.
Why does my IP location show the wrong city?
The database places the whole block the internet provider announces in one spot, and that spot is often where the provider keeps its equipment. If you moved, or the internet provider moved the block, the database lags until its next update. The address is right and the place is a guess, so a city that is near you or in your region is a normal result.
What is the hosting list?
A short list of large cloud and hosting networks that we keep by hand. The lookup says whether the network that announces an address is on it. Most hosting networks are not on the list, so an address that is not on it can still belong to one, and the lookup does not call any address a proxy or a VPN.
Why does the lookup refuse some addresses?
Private ranges such as 192.168.0.0 and 10.0.0.0, shared ranges, loopback and documentation addresses are not announced on the internet, so no network or place can be looked up for them. The lookup explains what each is instead. A name or a web address is refused too: this tool reads an IP address, not a host name.
How do I check the IP address of a proxy?
Send a request through the proxy to
/api/tools/ip?format=text on this site. It prints the address the request came from, which is the proxy's exit address, and you can paste that address above. For a list of proxies at once, use the
proxy tester, which shows the exit address, location and network of each one.
Is the IP lookup free?
Yes. Seeing your own address costs nothing, and one address can look up 60 other addresses in 10 minutes and 600 a day. The lookup never connects to the address you ask about: it reads local data and asks a name server for the reverse DNS name. To see which network announces an IPv4 address in more detail, open the
ASN lookup.