What Is My Internet Protocol (IP) Address?

How to Use This Tool:

Run the checker from the same browser session and network path you want to diagnose. Changing VPNs, Wi-Fi networks, mobile data, privacy relays, or cloud desktops can produce a different public route.

1. Use Check my IP to run a fresh Current connection lookup. The Current route summary should show a checked IP address, address family, public-scope badge, and source agreement label.
2. Open Advanced only when the default path does not match the question. Preferred family lets you inspect IPv4 first, IPv6 first, or the default automatic choice.
3. Keep Source strategy on Consensus cross-check when you need provider agreement, the Source Consensus chart, the Provider Ledger, or the Location Drift Map. Choose Fastest successful when a quick address and basic enrichment are enough.
4. Leave Reverse DNS lookup on when a hostname would help with mail, hosting, VPN, CDN, or abuse-desk handoffs. Turn it off if you only need the address, ASN, and geolocation clues.
5. Read Routing Snapshot first for Checked IP, Address scope, Address family, Current IPv4, Current IPv6, ASN, AS Org, timezone, and coordinate spread.
6. If the checker reports that it could not detect a public IPv4 or IPv6 route, retry after disabling VPN/privacy filters that block probe services, changing networks, or testing from another browser. If an address is flagged as private, documentation, carrier NAT, loopback, link-local, multicast, or reserved, it is not a usable public route for this check.
7. Use Next Checks before sending evidence to someone else. It turns the current route, dual-stack visibility, provider agreement, and PTR result into practical follow-up notes.

Interpreting Results:

The Checked IP is the address selected for the report. Compare it with Current IPv4 and Current IPv6 before using it in an allowlist, because a dual-stack network can expose both families and a service may log either one.

Address scope should read Global public for normal public-route evidence. A private, link-local, loopback, documentation, carrier-grade NAT, multicast, benchmark, or reserved label means the address describes a local or special-purpose range, not a remote-service identity.

ASN, AS Org, and ISP are often more dependable for support handoffs than city-level geolocation. A city and coordinate can help explain a login alert or CDN decision, but the corrective check is provider agreement: compare Country alignment, City alignment, Timezone alignment, and Coordinate spread before treating location as trustworthy.

Reverse DNS is a clue, not a requirement. A useful PTR hostname can confirm a hosting, VPN, carrier, or mail pattern; No PTR answer is common and does not make the IP invalid.

Technical Details:

A public IP check starts with reachability from the browser to public address-detection services. The observed address is the source route those services see after local routing, NAT, carrier translation, VPN tunneling, proxying, or IPv6 selection. The device's own interface address may never appear in the report because it can be valid only inside the local network.

Special-purpose address ranges are screened before enrichment so local or reserved values are not mistaken for internet-facing evidence. IPv4 private ranges, carrier-grade NAT shared space, loopback, link-local, documentation, benchmarking, multicast, and reserved blocks carry different operational meanings. IPv6 adds unique local, link-local, documentation, loopback, unspecified, and multicast patterns, while globally routed IPv6 addresses can be visible without IPv4-style NAT.

Rule Core

Provider enrichment adds context from IPinfo and ipapi when they return data for the checked address. The fields do not have equal strength. Address and ASN agreement are usually stronger evidence than postal or city agreement because geolocation databases can update at different times, group addresses by provider region, or map VPN and cloud exits differently.

Agreement Core

Coordinate spread uses great-circle distance, which treats latitude and longitude points as positions on a sphere. This is appropriate for comparing rough IP-geolocation markers because the goal is to detect provider drift, not to measure street-level distance.

Formula Core

For two provider coordinate pairs, the spread calculation uses the haversine distance:

Here R is Earth radius in kilometers, lat and lon are converted to radians, and d is the provider-to-provider distance. The reported coordinate spread is the largest distance found among returned coordinate markers.

The overall agreement label is a compact reading of several signals, not a certification. With two attempted enrichment providers, strong agreement requires most address, country, city, timezone, operator, and coordinate checks to align; mixed agreement means partial conflict; a single-source result should be used as a quick clue rather than a confirmed consensus.

Privacy and Accuracy Notes:

This is a network diagnostic, so the lookup necessarily contacts public services to discover and enrich the public route. Treat the result as current routing evidence, not as identity proof.

• The public IP address is visible to the services used for route detection and provider enrichment.
• When reverse DNS is enabled, a PTR query for the checked address is sent to public DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers.
• Geolocation fields come from provider databases and can be stale, approximate, or different between providers.
• The checker does not verify account ownership, device identity, active BGP announcements, or exact physical location.

Worked Examples:

VPN confirmation: A user connects to a corporate VPN, runs Check my IP, and sees Checked IP change from a home ISP route to a business network with a different AS Org. If Current IPv6 still shows the home network while Checked IP is IPv4, the VPN may not be carrying IPv6 traffic and a security team may need both families tested.

Support ticket evidence: A hosting provider asks for the caller's public address. The Routing Snapshot shows Address scope as Global public, an ASN, and a PTR hostname. Sharing the checked IP with the ASN and PTR gives the provider more stable evidence than a city label alone.

Geolocation warning: A login alert says the connection came from a nearby city. The report shows Country alignment and Timezone alignment match, but City alignment is split and Coordinate spread is several hundred kilometers. That pattern supports a routing or database-location explanation before assuming the account was used from the exact alert city.

FAQ:

Glossary:

Public IP address

The internet-facing IPv4 or IPv6 address remote services can see for the current connection.

Private address

A local-use address that works inside a LAN or private network but is not routed as a public client address.

Carrier-grade NAT

A provider translation setup where many subscribers share provider-managed IPv4 address space before reaching the public internet.

ASN

An autonomous system number that identifies a routed network operator or routing domain.

Reverse DNS

A DNS lookup that asks whether an IP address has a published PTR hostname.

Dual-stack

A connection where IPv4 and IPv6 are both visible from the browser session.

Coordinate spread

The maximum distance between provider-returned geolocation coordinates for the checked address.