Your Public IP Address
Instantly check your public IPv4 and IPv6 address, your internet provider, approximate location and more — using live data from trusted IP geolocation services.
This map shows an approximate location based on IP geolocation data, which is typically accurate to the city or regional level. It does not represent your exact street address or physical position.
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View your detected public IP address, ISP and approximate geolocation in the dashboard above.
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Everything you need to know about how IP addressing, routing, and online privacy actually work.
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical label assigned to every device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. It functions similarly to a postal address: it tells other devices on the network where to send data. Without IP addresses, the internet's routing system would have no way of knowing where to deliver requested web pages, emails, or files. Every time your device connects to a Wi-Fi network, mobile data network, or wired connection, it is assigned at least one IP address, and often more than one depending on the network layers involved.
It's important to understand the distinction between a public and a private IP address. A private IP address, such as one beginning with 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, or 172.16.x.x through 172.31.x.x, is used only within your local network — your home or office — to identify individual devices like laptops, phones, and smart TVs. These addresses are not routable on the public internet and are reused across millions of private networks worldwide. A public IP address, on the other hand, is the address your entire network uses to communicate with the broader internet. It is assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and is what websites and online services actually see when you connect to them. The IP address displayed by this tool is your public IP, not your device's internal private address.
IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) is the original addressing system still widely used today. It uses a 32-bit numeric format divided into four decimal numbers separated by periods, such as 203.0.113.42. This structure allows for roughly 4.3 billion unique addresses. Because the number of internet-connected devices has grown far beyond that figure, the pool of available IPv4 addresses has been largely exhausted, which is one of the key reasons IPv6 was developed. Most networks today still rely heavily on IPv4, often combined with NAT, to stretch the limited address space further.
IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) was introduced to solve IPv4's address exhaustion problem. It uses a 128-bit address format, typically written as eight groups of hexadecimal digits separated by colons, such as 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334. This provides an astronomically larger address space — enough to assign unique addresses to virtually every device ever likely to connect to the internet, without requiring the workarounds that IPv4 depends on. IPv6 adoption varies by country and ISP; some networks support it fully, some partially, and others not at all, which is why this tool checks for both IPv4 and IPv6 separately.
When you request a web page, your device sends data packets labeled with your IP address as the source and the destination server's IP address as the target. These packets travel through a series of routers, each forwarding the packet toward its destination based on routing tables that map out the most efficient available paths. This happens in milliseconds, often across multiple countries and network providers, before the response data finds its way back to your IP address.
NAT is a technique used by routers to allow many devices on a private network to share a single public IP address. When a device on your home network sends a request to the internet, your router rewrites the packet so it appears to come from your router's public IP, then keeps track of which internal device the response should be returned to. NAT has helped conserve IPv4 addresses significantly, since an entire household or office of devices only consumes a single public IPv4 address.
Most residential internet connections use dynamic IP addresses, meaning your ISP can reassign a different address to your connection periodically, such as after a router restart or lease renewal. Static IP addresses remain fixed and are commonly used by businesses running servers or services that need a consistent, unchanging address. Whether restarting your router changes your IP depends on your ISP's address allocation policy and how long your current lease has been active.
Every website or online service you connect to necessarily receives your public IP address as part of standard internet communication — this is simply how data gets routed back to you. Websites commonly use this information for basic purposes such as fraud prevention, approximate regional content delivery, and traffic analytics. This is normal, expected internet behavior rather than a form of surveillance unique to any one site.
IP geolocation databases estimate a location by cross-referencing IP address ranges against records registered by ISPs and regional internet registries. This can usually identify your approximate city, region, or country, but it frequently reflects the location of your ISP's regional infrastructure rather than your literal physical address. Mobile connections and VPNs can make this estimate considerably less accurate. No legitimate IP lookup tool can determine your exact home address from an IP address alone.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) routes your traffic through an intermediary server operated by the VPN provider, which means websites see the VPN server's IP address rather than your own. This can improve privacy from the perspective of the websites you visit, but the VPN provider itself can still see your real IP and browsing activity, which is why choosing a reputable provider matters. A proxy server works similarly by relaying your requests through another server, though it typically offers less comprehensive protection and encryption than a full VPN.
Firewalls inspect incoming and outgoing network traffic and block connections that don't meet defined security rules. Most home routers include a basic firewall and NAT-based protection that blocks unsolicited inbound connections by default, which is one reason simply knowing someone's IP address does not grant direct access to their device. Keeping router firmware updated and avoiding unnecessary port forwarding are simple but effective security practices.
The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-readable domain names, like example.com, into the numeric IP addresses computers use to locate each other. Without DNS, you would need to remember the IP address of every website you wanted to visit. DNS queries are typically handled by servers operated by your ISP or a third-party DNS provider, and the choice of DNS provider can impact browsing speed and, to some extent, privacy.
While an IP address alone does not reveal your name or exact address, it can be considered personal data under privacy regulations such as the GDPR because it may, combined with other data, help identify an individual or their general location. Practicing good privacy hygiene includes being cautious about sharing your IP publicly, using HTTPS websites, and understanding what information is visible to the services you use.
A common misconception is that changing your IP address guarantees anonymity or significantly improves privacy. In reality, an IP address is just one of many signals (including browser fingerprinting, cookies, and account logins) that can be used to track activity online. Changing your IP — whether through your ISP, a VPN, or a proxy — can reduce the usefulness of IP-based tracking, but it does not eliminate other forms of tracking and does not make you invisible online. Similarly, knowing someone's IP address does not automatically allow a malicious actor to "hack" their device; meaningful unauthorized access typically requires exploiting a specific vulnerability, not just possessing an IP address.
Clear, accurate answers about IP addresses, privacy, and how this tool works.