Home Features How It Works Pricing Network Map
Free Tools
Sign In Start Free

What is my IP address?

Instantly see your public IP, ISP, ASN, geolocation, reverse DNS and per-node latency from Emercom monitoring servers — plus the HTTP headers your browser sends with every request.

22 Vantage points
15 Countries
< 2s Per lookup
$0 No account

Your IP Address

216.73.216.249

Public Address

IP Address

Address
216.73.216.249
Version
—
Reverse DNS (PTR)
Looking up…

Network

ISP
Looking up…
ASN
Looking up…

Location

Country
Looking up…
City
—
Region
—
Timezone
—

Latency from Monitoring Nodes

Starting…

Real-time round-trip time and packet loss measured from each Emercom monitoring server to your IP.

Legend < 50 ms < 150 ms ≥ 150 ms
Node ASN / Provider Status RTT Loss
Measuring latency from 20+ global locations…

Quick Actions

Run a one-click network check against your own IP.

Ping my IP

ICMP latency & packet loss against your own address.

HTTP check my IP

HTTP response status, timing and headers from 22 nodes.

Port check my IP

TCP / UDP port connectivity from multiple regions.

DNS lookup my IP

Reverse and forward DNS records for your address.

Look up a different IP address

Lookup
Try:

Request Headers 4

Every HTTP request your browser sends carries metadata about your client, language preferences, encoding capabilities and origin. These are the headers we received from your request.

accept-encoding
gzip, br, zstd, deflate
user-agent
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
accept
*/*
connection
close

What Is an IP Address?

Think of an IP address as a mailing address for your device. Just like the postal service needs a street address to deliver a letter, the internet needs an IP address to deliver the webpage you requested back to your computer, phone or tablet. Without it, the network would have no way to know where to send the response.

The IP address shown above is your public IP — the one the rest of the internet sees. It is assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and is shared by all devices on your home network through a process called Network Address Translation. The address itself is structured: each level — network, subnet, device, port — narrows the scope, just like country, city, street and house number narrow a postal address.

Postal analogy Network equivalent What it identifies
Country Network The autonomous system or ISP holding the address block.
City Subnet The local network segment within that block.
Street Device The specific machine — your laptop, phone, server.
House # Port The application listening on that machine (HTTP, SSH, etc.).

How Your Connection Works

Every time you visit a website, your request passes through several network layers before reaching the server. The path is consistent, even though the routes between hops change all the time.

  1. Your device sits behind a private IP like 192.168.1.x — only meaningful inside your home network.
  2. The router (NAT) translates that private IP into the single public address your ISP assigned. Every device on your network shares that one public IP.
  3. The ISP hands the packet onto the public internet, tagged with your public IP — the one shown at the top of this page.
  4. The internet routes the packet through multiple intermediate hops (autonomous systems, transit providers, content-delivery networks) until it reaches its destination.
  5. The web server receives the request and sees only your public IP — the private one is invisible to it.

Public vs Private IP

Your home network has two types of IP addresses. Understanding the difference explains why this page often shows an IP that does not match the one in your device settings.

A private IP address is like a room number inside a building — it only makes sense inside your local network. Your router assigns these addresses to each device: laptop, phone, smart TV. A public IP address is like the building's street address — it is how the outside world finds you. Your entire household shares a single public IP, assigned by your ISP. The router uses NAT (Network Address Translation) to bridge the gap, so all your devices can share that one public IP when talking to the internet.

RFC 1918 reserves three address ranges for private use. None of them are routable on the public internet — they will never appear as the source IP of a request reaching a public server.

Range Addresses Typical Use
10.0.0.0/8 ~16.7 million Large enterprise and corporate networks.
172.16.0.0/12 ~1 million Medium-sized networks.
192.168.0.0/16 65,536 Home networks (most common).

Static vs Dynamic IP

Whether your IP stays the same or changes periodically depends on how your ISP assigns it. Most home connections use a dynamic IP: a new address from a pool each time your router reconnects. Servers and businesses typically use a static IP that never changes.

  Static IP Dynamic IP
Assigned by ISP, manually ISP via DHCP
Changes Never Periodically
Used by Servers, businesses Home users
Cost Extra fee Included

Most home internet connections use a dynamic IP. If you need a permanent address — for hosting a server, for example — ask your ISP about a static IP add-on.

Inside an IP Packet

Every piece of data that crosses the internet is wrapped in an IP packet. Think of the packet as a postal envelope: the header is the addressing label that tells routers where it came from and where it is going, and the payload is the actual content — part of a web page, an image, a chunk of a video stream.

An IPv4 header is typically 20 bytes long (up to 60 with options). It carries everything routers need to forward the packet: source and destination addresses, a time-to-live counter that prevents infinite loops, a protocol field that tells the receiver whether the payload is TCP / UDP / something else, and a checksum to catch transmission errors. When you run an IP lookup, you are reading metadata associated with the Source IP field — the 32-bit address that identifies who sent the packet.

Version4 b
IHL4 b
Type of Service8 b
Total Length16 b
Identification16 b
Flg3 b
Fragment Offset13 b
TTL8 b
Protocol8 b
Header Checksum16 b
Source IP Address32 b
Destination IP Address32 b
TTL — countdown, drops one per hop Source / Destination IP — what this lookup reads
IPv4 header · 32 bits per row · 160 bits total (20 bytes)

IPv4 vs IPv6

The internet is gradually transitioning from IPv4 to IPv6 to accommodate the explosion of connected devices. IPv4's 4.3 billion addresses ran out years ago — IPv6's 128-bit space, with roughly 340 undecillion addresses, is the long-term answer.

  IPv4 IPv6
Example 93.184.216.34 2001:db8::1
Address size 32-bit 128-bit
Total addresses ~4.3 billion ~340 undecillion
Format Dotted decimal Hex colon notation
Header size 20–60 bytes 40 bytes (fixed)
NAT required Yes No
Traffic share ~60% ~40%

Does a VPN Change My IP?

A VPN encrypts your traffic and routes it through a server in another location. From the website's perspective, the request comes from the VPN server's IP — your real address never appears in the connection. The VPN provider sees the real IP, and the destination site sees the VPN's exit IP; nothing in between sees both.

This page shows the IP as seen by our server, so if you are connected through a VPN you will see the VPN's exit address, not the one your ISP assigned to your router. That is exactly the point of a VPN — but it is also why "this page shows a different IP than my device settings" is the most common question we get on this tool.

This page shows the IP as seen by our server. Behind a VPN, that is the VPN's exit IP — not your real one.

Does a VPN Make You Secure?

YouTube ads make VPNs sound like a magic shield against hackers, governments and identity theft. They are not. A VPN is a useful privacy tool for specific situations, but most of what sponsored videos claim is marketing — here is what a VPN actually does and does not do.

"A VPN makes you anonymous"

Reality: You shift trust from your ISP to the VPN provider. The VPN sees every site you visit. Many "no-log" VPNs have been subpoenaed and handed over data; some have been caught logging despite their marketing. Cookies, browser fingerprints and account logins identify you regardless of IP.

"A VPN protects you from hackers"

Reality: The real protection against eavesdropping on public Wi-Fi is HTTPS / TLS, which encrypts your connection end-to-end to the actual site. Over 95% of the web is HTTPS today. A VPN was more useful when plain HTTP was common — now it is mostly a tunnel inside an already-encrypted connection.

"A VPN stops tracking and ads"

Reality: Cookies, browser fingerprinting, account logins (Google, Facebook, Amazon) and third-party tracker networks all work regardless of your IP. Changing your IP does not stop a site from recognising you once you log in.

"A VPN protects you from malware"

Reality: A VPN only routes traffic — it does not inspect what is inside. Malware, phishing links and scam sites reach you the same way with or without a VPN. Endpoint security (browser, antivirus, DNS filtering) is what actually helps.

"A VPN hides you from the government"

Reality: Not from serious adversaries. Traffic correlation, endpoint compromise, legal requests to the VPN provider, and metadata from payment methods and accounts all bypass the VPN. Many VPN companies operate in jurisdictions that cooperate with law enforcement requests.

"A VPN encrypts everything"

Reality: Only the tunnel between your device and the VPN server is encrypted by the VPN. After the exit server, your traffic is as encrypted — or not — as it would be without a VPN. Plain HTTP stays plain; HTTPS was already encrypted anyway.

When a VPN genuinely helps: hiding which sites you visit from your ISP or local network admin, accessing geo-restricted content, reaching your employer's internal network remotely, and privacy on a truly untrusted network. A better mental model: a VPN moves the "who sees my traffic metadata" problem from your ISP to the VPN company. That can be an upgrade with a reputable paid provider in a jurisdiction you trust — but it is a lateral move, not a force field.

Common Uses for IP Lookup

IP address lookup is used across security, operations, compliance and troubleshooting. The same query — "what do we know about this IP?" — drives very different workflows.

Security Analysis

Identify the origin of suspicious traffic, brute-force attempts or DDoS attacks. IP geolocation and ASN data reveal whether traffic comes from known malicious networks.

Geolocation Verification

Verify that your VPN or proxy is routing traffic through the expected region. Confirm geo-restricted content is served correctly based on apparent location.

Network Troubleshooting

Determine your public-facing IP when debugging connectivity, configuring firewalls or setting up remote access after an ISP assigns a new address.

Compliance & Access Control

Enforce geographic access policies for GDPR and data residency. Validate that API requests originate from authorized networks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Quick answers to the most common questions about IP addresses.

No. An IP address only reveals an approximate location — typically a city or region, never a street address. Geolocation databases map IPs to the ISP's infrastructure, not to individual homes. Law enforcement can request exact data from your ISP with a court order, but a random person on the internet cannot pinpoint where you live from your IP alone.

Yes, there are several ways. The simplest is to restart your router — if you have a dynamic IP, your ISP will often assign a new one. For instant changes, use a VPN or proxy service, which masks your real IP with the server's address. You can also contact your ISP to request a different IP or a static IP assignment.

It depends. Most home connections use a dynamic IP, which can change when your router restarts or your ISP's lease expires. Business connections and servers often use a static IP that never changes. If you need a permanent address, ask your ISP about a static IP option.

By itself, an IP address is not dangerous — every website you visit can see it. However, it can be used to estimate your general location or target your connection with unwanted traffic. To stay safe, keep your router firmware updated, use a firewall, and consider a reputable VPN if you want to hide your IP and browsing metadata from your ISP — but see the section above on what a VPN actually protects against.

An IPv4 address like 192.168.1.10 has four numbers called octets, separated by dots. Each octet ranges from 0 to 255. The first octets identify the network, and the later ones identify the specific device. Think of it like a phone number: area code + local number.

Your device settings show your private IP (e.g. 192.168.x.x), which is used only within your local network. This page shows your public IP, assigned by your ISP and visible to the outside world. Your router translates between the two using NAT (Network Address Translation).

Related Tools

More free network diagnostics, all running from the same 22-location footprint.

Website Availability Check

Verify HTTP status codes, response times and redirects from 22 locations.

Ping Test

Measure latency and packet loss from 22 global locations.

DNS Lookup

Query DNS records and verify propagation across regions.

WHOIS Lookup

Find domain registration details, expiry dates and nameservers.

Want continuous IP monitoring?

Monitor your servers and services automatically and get alerts when they become unreachable. 22 global locations. Under 30 seconds to alert.

Start Monitoring Free Open Full Tools