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What is my IP address? How public IPs work
Learn what a public IP address is, how ISPs assign it, and how to check your IP, ISP, and location in seconds.
Your public IP address is the address the internet uses to send traffic back to your network. Every device on your home or office LAN usually has a private address (like 192.168.x.x), but outbound connections share one public IPv4 (and sometimes IPv6) assigned by your ISP.
Public vs private IP
- Private IPs stay inside your LAN and are not routable on the public internet.
- Your public IP is what websites, APIs, and mail servers see.
- NAT (network address translation) lets many devices share one public IPv4 address.
Why people look up “what is my IP”
Common reasons: confirming a VPN is on, allowlisting an office IP in a firewall, debugging mail delivery, or checking which country a CDN thinks you are in. The address alone is not a password, but it can reveal your approximate city and ISP.
Free — shows public IP, ISP, ASN, and location.
Does my IP change?
Most residential connections use dynamic public IPs that can change when the modem reconnects. Business lines and some fiber plans may get a static IP. Mobile networks often use carrier-grade NAT, so many customers share addresses.
IPv4 and IPv6
You may have both. IPv4 looks like 203.0.113.10. IPv6 is longer (for example 2001:db8::1). Some sites prefer one family over the other; a dual-stack network can show different “my IP” results depending on the path.
Geolocation, ISP, reverse DNS, and ownership signals.