This page shows the public IP address the internet sees when you connect, along with its approximate location, network owner, and the connection details your browser reveals to every site you visit.
What Is My IP Address
LiveEffective type and speed are browser estimates from the Network Information API (Chrome/Edge only). They may read low for the first couple of seconds while this page's own lookups are still in flight — for an actual measured round-trip time, use the Ping Calculator instead.
Looking up another address replaces the Location and Network panels above. The Connection and Browser panels always describe your own session. Click Refresh to go back to your own IP.
What an IP address actually is
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is the number that identifies your connection on the internet. Every request you make — loading a page, sending an email, streaming a video — carries a return address so the answer knows where to come back to. That return address is what this page reads.
The address shown above is almost certainly your router's public address, not your device's. Inside your home or office, devices use private addresses such as 192.168.1.14 or 10.0.0.3 (working out the exact range is what the Subnet Calculator does). Your router translates all of them onto a single public address (a process called NAT), which is why every phone, laptop and TV on the same Wi-Fi normally shows the same public IP.
IPv4 vs IPv6, in one table
| IPv4 | IPv6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Example | 203.0.113.42 | 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334 |
| Length | 32 bits | 128 bits |
| Total addresses | About 4.3 billion | 340 undecillion (3.4 × 1038) |
| Written as | Four numbers, dots | Eight groups of hex, colons |
| Status | Exhausted, still dominant | Rolling out, mobile-first |
If your result starts with a long string of hex separated by colons, your connection reached this page over IPv6 — common on mobile networks. The dual-stack card tells you whether you have both, which is the useful answer: many connections have working IPv6 and IPv4 and simply prefer one.
How to read your result
- Check the IP version badge first. IPv6 results are normal on mobile data and on many fibre connections. An IPv6-only result with no IPv4 fallback can explain why an occasional old site or game server refuses to load.
- Compare the city to where you actually are. A mismatch of a few dozen kilometres is expected. A mismatch of a whole country usually means a VPN, a proxy, a corporate network, or a mobile carrier routing you through a distant gateway.
- Read the ISP and ASN together. The ASN (Autonomous System Number) is the stable identifier of the network that owns the address block. It changes far less often than the marketing name of the ISP, which is why network engineers quote the ASN in tickets.
- Use the timezone as a sanity check. If the IP timezone and your device timezone disagree, you are either travelling, using a VPN, or your device clock is set wrong.
- Refresh after reconnecting. Toggle Wi-Fi off and on, or restart your router, then press Refresh. Most home connections get a different address within a day or two anyway.
How accurate is IP geolocation?
Roughly: country-level accuracy is very high, city-level accuracy is decent in dense urban areas and poor in rural ones, and street-level accuracy does not exist. Geolocation databases do not measure where you are — they record where a block of addresses was registered or observed, then map anything in that block to a representative point, often the centre of a city or region.
That is why the coordinates shown above frequently land on a city centre, a telecom exchange, or a spot with no relationship to any customer. Mobile networks are the worst case: a single gateway can serve an entire region, so a phone in a small town can appear in the capital hundreds of kilometres away.
Checking that a VPN is really working
- Load this page with the VPN off and note the IP, city and ISP.
- Turn the VPN on, then click Refresh (or reload the page).
- Confirm all three changed. The ISP should now be the VPN provider or a hosting company, and the city should match the server you chose. If the ISP still reads as your home provider, the tunnel is not carrying your traffic.
- Check the dual-stack card for an IPv6 leak. If your real IPv6 address still appears while the IPv4 address shows the VPN, your VPN is not handling IPv6 — a genuine leak. Either enable IPv6 support in the VPN app or disable IPv6 on the device.
Common mistakes
192.168.x.x your computer reports in its network settings is invisible to the internet. Port forwarding and remote-access setups need the public address shown at the top of this page.How to hide the IP address shown above
The address at the top of this page is visible to every website you load, every app on your device, and your internet provider. If you'd rather it weren't, there are three practical ways to change it — and they are not equivalent:
| Method | Speed | Encrypted | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| VPN | Fast | Yes | Everyday use — changes your address and encrypts the connection at the same time |
| Proxy | Fast | Often no | Changing your apparent location only, with no privacy benefit |
| Tor | Slow | Yes | Maximum anonymity when speed genuinely doesn't matter |
Worth stating plainly because it's the most common misconception on this topic: private or incognito browsing does not change your IP address at all. It only clears local history. The address above stays exactly the same.
This is the useful part: turn a VPN on, reload this page, and the address at the top changes. That's not a claim you have to take on faith — it's a two-second test you can run right here, which also makes this page a reliable way to confirm a VPN is actually connected rather than silently failing.
When it actually matters
A VPN is not something most people need switched on permanently. Four situations where it does real work:
- Public Wi-Fi — cafes, airports, hotels. Encryption is the point here, not the address change.
- Travelling — banking sites and services that behave differently, or block you outright, from an unfamiliar country.
- Working remotely — handling client files or company systems over a connection you don't control.
- An ISP that logs and sells browsing data — legal in many jurisdictions, and a VPN is the practical answer.
A well-established option
Partner link
NordVPN is one of the longest-running providers and a reasonable starting point if you want one: strong device-count allowance, an independently audited no-logs policy, and a 30-day money-back guarantee that works as a trial. Plans and pricing change periodically, so check their site directly for current tiers and cost rather than relying on a number here that could be out of date.
Check NordVPN plans →Then reload this page to confirm your new IP address.
Affiliate disclosure: This is an affiliate link. If you subscribe through it, Numeros may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. This does not affect our calculations or editorial conclusions.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my IP address keep changing?
Most home ISPs assign dynamic addresses from a shared pool. Your address can change when the lease expires, when your router restarts, or when the ISP rebalances its network — typically every few days to a few weeks. A static address is usually available as a paid add-on for business plans.
Why does this page show an IPv6 address instead of IPv4?
Because your connection preferred IPv6 when it reached this page, which browsers do by default when IPv6 works. It is not a problem. The dual-stack card queries an IPv4-only and an IPv6-only endpoint separately, so you can see both addresses even when only one is used for normal browsing.
Can someone find my home address from my IP?
No. Public databases resolve an IP to a city or region at best, and often to the wrong one. The link between an address and a subscriber is held only by the ISP and is released only through a lawful process. Anyone claiming to have your exact address from an IP alone is guessing or bluffing.
Why is the city wrong?
Geolocation maps address blocks, not people. If your ISP registered a block centrally, routes your traffic through a gateway in another city, or recently re-assigned the block, the database will lag. Mobile carriers and satellite providers are the least accurate of all.
What is an ASN and why should I care?
An Autonomous System Number identifies the network operator that announces your address block to the rest of the internet. It is the most reliable field on this page: ISP names change with rebrands and resellers, but the ASN is what actually routes your packets, so it is the identifier to quote in a support ticket or an abuse report.
Does using a VPN hide me completely?
It hides your address from the sites you visit and hides your destinations from your ISP. It does not hide you from services you log into, does not stop cookies or browser fingerprinting, and does not protect against an IPv6 leak if the VPN only tunnels IPv4 — check the dual-stack card above.
Does incognito or private browsing hide my IP address?
No — and this is probably the most widespread misunderstanding about private browsing. Incognito mode stops your browser saving history, cookies, and form data locally. It changes nothing about how your connection reaches a website, so your IP address stays identical. You can verify that in about five seconds: open this page in a private window and compare the address to the one shown normally.
How do I hide my IP address?
Route your connection through an intermediary server so sites see its address instead of yours. A VPN is the usual choice because it changes the address and encrypts the traffic in one step; a proxy changes the address without necessarily encrypting anything; Tor distributes the connection across multiple relays for stronger anonymity at a significant speed cost. Whichever you use, reloading this page is the quickest way to confirm it worked.
Why can't this page show my TLS version or cipher?
Browsers deliberately do not expose the TLS handshake to JavaScript. Sites that display a TLS version read it on their own server, from the connection you made to them. This page runs entirely in your browser, so it reports what the browser does expose — the page scheme, and the HTTP version negotiated for this document via the Navigation Timing API.
Is my IP address personal data?
Under the GDPR, yes — an IP address is treated as personal data because it can be linked to an individual with additional information held by an ISP. That is precisely why this page displays it and then discards it rather than logging it.
How do I find my private (local) IP address?
A web page cannot read it reliably any more; browsers closed that hole for privacy reasons. On Windows run ipconfig, on macOS or Linux run ip addr or ifconfig, and on phones look under Wi-Fi network details.
Why do two devices on my Wi-Fi show the same IP?
That is NAT working as designed. Your router presents one public address to the internet and keeps a table mapping each device's private address to it. Websites see the router; only the router knows which device asked.
Sources
- ipwho.is (ipwhois.io). Primary IP geolocation provider — country, region, city, coordinates, timezone, ISP, organisation and ASN. Free, no API key, 1,000 requests/day.
- ipapi.co and freeipapi.com. Automatic fallback providers if the primary lookup fails, so a single provider outage doesn't take the tool down.
- ipify (api.ipify.org / api6.ipify.org). Free, keyless plain-IP-echo endpoints used specifically to test IPv4 and IPv6 reachability separately for the dual-stack card.
- GDPR personal-data classification. General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, which treats IP addresses as personal data when they can be linked to an individual.
Related calculators
See the full list of Networking calculators, or try:
- Ping Calculator — round-trip time to a server
- Jitter Calculator — how consistent your ping is
- Packet Loss Calculator
- Subnet Calculator — work out IP ranges and network sizes
- Gaming Network Quality Calculator
- Uptime Calculator
- Password Generator