Your public IP address is shown above. I built this tool because I was tired of "what is my IP" sites that hide the answer behind twenty ads and a popup. The number you see is what every website you visit gets to read, the same way the return address on an envelope tells the post office where to send the reply. Below I explain what the digits mean, how to verify them from Windows, Mac, or Linux, and the three or four times this tool will quietly lie to you.
What is an IP address?
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a number assigned to every device that talks on a network. Your public IP (the one shown above) identifies the gateway your traffic uses on the open internet: usually your home router, your office firewall, or your mobile carrier. Inside your local network you also have private addresses, which look like 192.168.1.42, 10.0.0.5, or 172.20.0.1. Those private addresses never leave your LAN. Network Address Translation (NAT) maps the many private addresses behind your router to the one public address shown above.
IPv4 addresses are 32 bits, written as four decimal numbers separated by dots, like 203.0.113.42 (this is documentation example space, reserved by RFC 5737). The total IPv4 pool is about 4.3 billion addresses, which the world effectively ran out of in 2011. IPv6 addresses are 128 bits, written as eight groups of hexadecimal digits like 2001:db8::1 (also a documentation prefix). The IPv6 pool is about 340 undecillion. That is enough to assign every grain of sand on Earth its own block.
Two standards documents are worth knowing: RFC 791 defines IPv4 and dates from 1981. RFC 8200 defines IPv6 in its current form and was published in 2017.
Dynamic vs static IP addresses
Most home broadband connections get a dynamic IP: your ISP assigns one from a pool when your modem connects and may rotate it on a lease timer (typically 24 hours to a week) or whenever the link drops. Unplug your router for thirty minutes and you will often come back to a different address.
A static IP stays fixed. Business lines, dedicated servers, and most colocation customers pay for one because services like inbound SSH, DNS authority, or a mail server need a stable target. Consumer ISPs sometimes sell a static IP as an add-on for a few dollars a month; on mobile networks it is essentially unavailable. If you cannot get a static IP and need a stable name, dynamic DNS providers map a hostname to whatever address your router currently has and refresh it on change.
How to find your IP from the command line (Windows, Mac, Linux)
The tool above reports what my server sees when your browser connects. If you want to verify that number with your own eyes (and confirm it is not being intercepted by a browser extension), you can ask the network directly from a terminal. I keep all three of these aliased on my own machines.
On Windows (PowerShell)
Invoke-RestMethod ifconfig.me
ipconfig /allThe first line prints your public IPv4 in plain text. The second dumps every interface on your computer, with the private addresses your router assigned and the DNS servers your operating system is using.
On macOS (Terminal)
curl ifconfig.me
ifconfig | grep "inet "The first line hits a tiny public service and echoes your public IP. The second lists the private IPv4 on every interface: Wi-Fi, Ethernet, the loopback at 127.0.0.1, and Docker if you have it.
On Linux
curl ifconfig.me
ip addr show
hostname -Iip addr show is the modern replacement for ifconfig and shows IPv4, IPv6, and link-local addresses for every interface. hostname -I just prints the routable private addresses on a single line, which is handy in shell scripts.
When the number from curl ifconfig.me matches the number this page shows, you can trust the result. When they disagree, something is sitting between your browser and the internet, usually a VPN, a corporate proxy, or more rarely, a browser extension routing traffic somewhere unexpected.
How this page detects your IP (and where it gets it wrong)
When your browser opens this page, it makes an HTTPS request to my server. That request arrives with a source IP — the address your provider's edge router presents to the world. My API reads the address from the request headers and enriches it with two public datasets: MaxMind GeoLite2 for city and country, and the Team Cymru IP-to-ASN service for the network owner. No GPS, no permissions, no install.
There are four situations where the page will show you a number that surprises you:
- You are behind CGNAT. Carrier-grade NAT, defined in RFC 6598, means hundreds of subscribers share a single public IPv4 address. Your "IP" is really your neighbor's IP too. Port forwarding from outside is impossible without IPv6 or an ISP-supplied tunnel.
- You are on a VPN.You will see the VPN provider's exit address and the city of that data center, not your house.
- You are on mobile data.Carriers route traffic through regional gateways. I have measured a Vodafone connection in Karachi reporting as Lahore — about 1,200 km off. City accuracy is a guideline, not a promise.
- You are on a corporate or campus network.University and enterprise blocks register to the institution, so you may appear as "University of X" even from a dorm or coffee shop on the same network.
- You are on Tor or a split tunnel.Tor will show you a random exit relay in another country. Split-tunnel VPNs route some apps through the tunnel and leave the rest on your real ISP; if your browser is in the "leave it on ISP" group, you will see your real IP even though the VPN indicator is green.
Why you might actually need to know your IP
Most "what is my IP" guides exist to sell you a VPN. I am not selling anything. Here are the actual reasons I look up my IP, in roughly the order they come up:
- Firewall allowlists. Last month a client asked me to send the IP I would be SSH-ing from so they could open one rule on their bastion. This page gave it to me in two seconds.
- Port forwarding for self-hosting. If you run a game server, a Minecraft instance, or a home Plex server, your router needs to know your public IPv4 to map external ports inward.
- Support tickets.Call your ISP about a line fault and the first thing they ask is "what does what-is-my-ip show?".
- Verifying a VPN exit. Connect to a VPN, refresh this page, confirm the city changed. If it did not, your VPN is leaking or off.
- Geo-block debugging. If a streaming service refuses to load, check the country shown above. Sometimes a residential IP gets misclassified as commercial.
- Webhook origins. Webhook senders log a source IP. Match it to this page to confirm your environment called production, not staging.
IPv4 vs IPv6 (and why both show on this page)
Both protocols still exist in 2026, and most home networks run "dual-stack", speaking both at once. Which one this page shows depends on which one your browser raced to first. The selection algorithm is called Happy Eyeballs and is specified in RFC 8305: your browser opens TCP connections on both IPv4 and IPv6 in parallel, uses whichever finishes the handshake first, and abandons the other.
| IPv4 | IPv6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 32 bits | 128 bits |
| Format | 203.0.113.42 | 2001:db8::1 |
| Pool size | ~4.3 billion | ~340 undecillion |
| Standardized | 1981 (RFC 791) | 2017 (RFC 8200, current) |
| Per-device privacy | One per subscriber via NAT | One per device, often rotating |
If you only see IPv4 above, your ISP probably has not rolled out IPv6 yet (still common for cable providers in 2026), or your operating system is preferring IPv4 for compatibility on this network.
One side effect worth knowing: most operating systems implement IPv6 privacy extensions, which rotate the host portion of your IPv6 address every few hours. Refresh this page twice in one afternoon and the IPv6 line may change while the IPv4 line stays the same. That is by design and does not mean your connection moved.
Public vs private IPs (and why 192.168.x.x never appears here)
If the number above ever starts with 192.168, 10., or 172.16 through 172.31, something is wrong. Those ranges are reserved for private networks under RFC 1918 and never appear on the open internet. The three reserved blocks are:
10.0.0.0/8, about 16.7 million addresses172.16.0.0/12, about 1 million addresses192.168.0.0/16, about 65,000 addresses
Your router holds one address from one of these ranges on its LAN side and translates between them and the one public IP shown above. The whole reason private ranges exist is that the IPv4 pool was running thin even in 1996, when RFC 1918 was published as a pressure valve.
What I do with your IP
I do not keep a permanent log of who looked up their IP from this page. The check happens in your browser session and is forgotten on refresh. What I cannot speak for is what Google Analytics and Google AdSense collect on every page. See the Privacy Policy for the details, and decline the consent banner if you want to keep analytics off. The IP itself reaches my server because it has to (that is how HTTP works), but it is used to compute your answer, not stored against your visit.
Frequently asked questions
What is my public IP address used for?
Your public IP identifies the gateway your traffic uses on the open internet: usually your home router, office firewall, or mobile carrier. Websites use it for geo-targeting, fraud detection, and rate-limiting. You may need it for firewall allowlists, port forwarding, VPN verification, or ISP support calls.
Why does my IP address change?
Most home ISPs assign dynamic IPs from a pool when your modem connects. They rotate on a lease timer (typically 24 hours to a week) or whenever the link drops. Unplugging your router for 30 minutes will often give you a new address.
What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?
IPv4 addresses are 32 bits (about 4.3 billion total) written like 203.0.113.42. IPv6 addresses are 128 bits (about 340 undecillion total) written like 2001:db8::1. Most networks in 2026 run dual-stack, both protocols at once, and your browser picks whichever responds first via the Happy Eyeballs algorithm (RFC 8305).
Can someone find my exact location from my IP address?
No. IP-based geolocation is accurate at the country level (about 95%) and city level (about 60 to 70%). Mobile carriers route traffic through regional gateways that can be hundreds of kilometers from your actual location. Only your ISP can map an IP to a physical address, and only with a legal order.
Why does this page show a different IP than my VPN says?
Three common causes: (1) split-tunnel VPN where browser traffic bypasses the tunnel, (2) WebRTC leak revealing your real IP, (3) DNS leak. If this page shows your real ISP while your VPN client says connected, the VPN is leaking. Test it on the VPN leak detection tool.
Related tools
ASN is the network identifier behind every IP. See the ISP tool for the ASN attached to yours. DNS translates names to addresses without touching IP routing. See the DNS tool. If you suspect your VPN is leaking, the VPN-leak tool compares this address with the one WebRTC announces. For city-level location alone, see the location tool.