What this page shows and where it comes from
When your browser loads this page it asks our own small server function at the network edge, /api/ip, who is calling. The answer is the public IP address your connection arrived from, as seen by Cloudflare, together with the country, region, city, network name and autonomous system number (ASN) that Cloudflare associates with it, and the TLS and HTTP versions your browser negotiated. Nothing is stored. To show both your IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, the page also makes two tiny requests to public echo services (ipify, with icanhazip as a backup) — one reachable only over IPv4, the other only over IPv6 — which simply reply with the address they saw.
The Your browser card is worked out on your device from the user-agent string, navigator.languages and the time zone your system is set to. It works even when the lookup is unavailable, for instance in an offline copy of the page or when an extension blocks the request.
Why two lookups? A website only ever sees one address per connection. Many homes now have both IPv4 and IPv6, and your browser picks one — usually IPv6 if it works. So the big address is the one used to reach this page, and the IPv4 and IPv6 rows below it force a connection over each protocol separately. If a row says there is no IPv6, your provider or router has not enabled it; if it says there is no IPv4, you are on an IPv6-only network (common on some mobile carriers, which translate to IPv4 behind the scenes).
Public versus private IP addresses
Your router gives every device at home a private address, typically in 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x, and translates all their traffic to one public address on the internet (NAT). That is why your laptop’s network settings show a different number from the one at the top of this page, and why every device in the house shows the same public IP here.
| Range | Meaning |
|---|---|
10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16 | Private (RFC 1918) — local networks only |
100.64.0.0/10 | Carrier-grade NAT — your provider shares one public IPv4 address between customers |
169.254.0.0/16, fe80::/10 | Link-local — self-assigned; on IPv4 it usually means DHCP failed |
fc00::/7 | IPv6 unique local — the IPv6 private range |
2000::/3 | Global IPv6 — public; normally no NAT, and devices rotate privacy addresses |
Paste any address into the checker at the bottom of the tool to classify it, expand an abbreviated IPv6 address or get its reverse-DNS name. If your router’s WAN address is in 100.64.0.0/10, you are behind carrier-grade NAT, which is why port forwarding and hosting game servers may not work.
How accurate is IP location?
IP geolocation is a database lookup, not GPS. Addresses are registered to providers in blocks, and the database records where a block is used. The country is right in the vast majority of cases. The city is much less reliable: it is often the nearest large town or the place where your provider’s equipment sits, so someone in Bolton can easily appear as Manchester or even London, and mobile data can appear hundreds of miles away. It never reveals your street or house.
That is why the map link opens a wide area on OpenStreetMap rather than a pin. If a website insists you are in the wrong country, it is using the same kind of database; your provider can ask the database companies to correct it.
VPN, proxy and privacy hints
The network card looks at the name of the organisation that owns your address. Home broadband and mobile networks are named after the provider — BT, Virgin Media, Sky, Vodafone, EE. If instead the owner is a hosting or cloud company (Amazon, Microsoft, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, M247, Datacamp) or a known VPN brand, traffic is almost certainly going through a VPN, proxy, corporate gateway or a relay such as iCloud Private Relay. We also compare your device’s time zone with the network’s: a laptop set to London appearing from Amsterdam is a typical VPN sign, although travelling produces the same result.
These are hints, not proof — some VPNs use residential addresses precisely to avoid detection. To check a VPN is working, note the address with it off, switch it on and press refresh: the address, provider and usually the country should change. Setting up a new router? Protect it with a long key from the password generator and share guest access with a Wi-Fi QR code. Pasting API output that includes addresses? The JSON formatter makes it readable.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the IP address here different from the one in my computer’s settings?
Your computer shows its private address on your home network, such as 192.168.1.20, assigned by your router. Websites see your router’s public address, which is shared by every device in the house. Both are correct; they are addresses on two different networks, joined by the router’s network address translation (NAT).
Why does it show IPv6 when I expected IPv4, or the other way round?
Your browser chooses which protocol to use for each connection, preferring IPv6 when your provider supports it, so the big address is whichever one it picked. The IPv4 and IPv6 rows underneath check each protocol on its own, so if you have both you will see both there. If the IPv6 row says none, your connection has no IPv6 — ask your provider or turn it on in your router.
Can someone find my home address from my IP?
Not from the IP alone. Public databases only locate an address to a town or region, and often get that wrong. Your provider knows which customer had an address at a given time, but it only discloses that to the police or courts with a legal order. Your IP does reveal your provider and rough area.
Does this site store or log my IP address?
No. Our edge function reads the address from the incoming request, sends it back to your browser and forgets it. We keep no logs of lookups and share nothing with IP databases or advertisers. The separate IPv4 and IPv6 rows come from two public echo services (ipify and icanhazip) that your browser asks directly; they see your address the same way any website you visit does. Cloudflare, which carries our traffic, keeps standard short-lived security logs like any web host.
How do I check whether my VPN is working?
Note the address and provider shown here with the VPN off, then connect the VPN and press the refresh button. A working VPN changes the IP address, the provider name to the VPN or a hosting company, and usually the country. If the address is unchanged, traffic is not going through the VPN.
What are ISP and ASN?
The ISP is the company providing your internet connection. The ASN, or autonomous system number, identifies the network that announces your address block to the rest of the internet, for example AS2856 for BT. Network engineers use the ASN to identify a provider precisely, because company names on IP records vary.