What Is an IP Address?
An IP address is the identifier that lets one device on a network find and exchange data with another. IP stands for Internet Protocol, the set of rules that decides how information is packaged, addressed and handed from one network to the next until it arrives where it was meant to go.
It helps to think of it as routing information rather than a name. When your laptop requests a page, that request is broken into packets, and every packet carries two addresses: where it came from and where it is going. Routers along the path read the destination, decide which direction moves the packet closer, and pass it on. No single router needs to know the whole route — each one only needs to know the next step.
The return address matters just as much. A server that receives a request has to know where to send the answer, which is why the address attached to your connection is visible to the sites you visit. Without it, your request would arrive and the response would have nowhere to go.
What Is My Public IP Address?
Your public IP address is the address the rest of the internet sees when your traffic reaches it. In most homes and offices it belongs to your router, it was assigned by your internet service provider, and it is shared by every device on that network.
That sharing is the part people usually find surprising. Your phone, your laptop and your television each hold their own private address inside the local network, but whenever any of them talks to the outside world, the router rewrites the packets so they appear to come from a single public address. The technique is called Network Address Translation, or NAT, and it is why a household with a dozen connected devices needs only one public address.
The number at the top of this page is that public address — specifically, the one attached to the connection this page arrived over. Switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data and you are on a different network, so you will see a different address.
How to Find My IP Address
For your public address, you have already done it. This page detected it the moment it loaded, and the Copy IP button places it on your clipboard.
Finding a private address means looking at the device itself, because that number never leaves your local network:
- Windows — open Command Prompt and run
ipconfig, then read the IPv4 Address line for your active adapter. - macOS — System Settings, then Network, then select your connection and open Details.
- iPhone and iPad — Settings, then Wi-Fi, then tap the information icon next to your network.
- Android — Settings, then Network & internet, then Wi-Fi, then tap your network. Wording varies by manufacturer.
- Your router — most admin pages list every connected device with its private address, usually reachable at something like
192.168.1.1.
If a support technician asks for “your IP”, they almost always mean the public one.
What Is the Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6?
IPv4 is the original addressing scheme and still carries most everyday traffic. It writes addresses as four numbers from 0 to 255 separated by dots, such as 203.0.113.7. That format allows roughly 4.3 billion addresses, a figure that looked generous in the early 1980s and ran short decades ago.
IPv6 is the replacement, and it solves the shortage with enormous room to spare. Its addresses are 128 bits long, written as groups of hexadecimal digits such as 2001:db8::1, giving a pool that is effectively unlimited for any foreseeable purpose. Long runs of zeros can be collapsed to a double colon, which is why IPv6 addresses often look shorter than they really are.
Both are still in daily use because the change cannot happen all at once. Networks run them side by side in an arrangement called dual stack, and your device generally prefers IPv6 when both ends support it, falling back to IPv4 when they do not. That is why the version shown above can differ depending on which network you are using.
Public IP Address vs. Private IP Address
The distinction is about reach. A public address is routable across the internet, so any network can send traffic to it. A private address means something only inside one local network, and routers on the public internet will not forward traffic to it.
Private ranges are set aside by standard, so the same numbers can be reused in millions of separate networks without conflict. In IPv4 they are 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255, and 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. That last block is why 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 are such familiar router addresses.
Inside your home, your router hands a private address to each device and keeps track of which one asked for what. Outside, that same router presents one public address on everyone's behalf. Both layers do real work: the private one organizes your local network, the public one gives it a place on the internet.
Can an IP Address Reveal My Location?
Up to a point, and far less precisely than most people expect.
IP geolocation works by consulting databases that map address ranges to places. Those databases are assembled from regional registry records, network routing data, information published by providers, and various forms of inference. They are usually dependable at the country level, reasonably good at the region level, and distinctly approximate at the city level.
What an IP address does not do is reveal a street address, a building or a device's position. Results frequently point at provider equipment serving a wide area rather than at a customer, which can place you in a neighbouring town or a different city altogether. Mobile connections are looser still, because traffic may leave the carrier's network a long way from where the phone actually is. VPNs, proxies and office connections routed through a head office move the result somewhere else entirely.
Treat any location shown on this page, or on any similar site, as a general area rather than a fact about where you are.
Does My IP Address Change?
For most home connections, yes — often without you noticing.
A dynamic address is assigned from a pool held by your provider, and it may be replaced when your router restarts, when a lease expires, or when the provider reorganizes its network. Some connections keep the same address for months regardless; others change it regularly. Both are normal.
A static address is reserved for one customer and stays put. Businesses often pay for one because mail servers, remote access and allowlisted connections need a fixed, predictable address. Residential providers usually offer static addresses as an extra, if at all.
You also change address simply by changing network. Home Wi-Fi, mobile data, office Wi-Fi and a café connection each present a different public address, because each is a different network with its own allocation. A VPN does the same thing deliberately: your traffic leaves from the VPN provider's server, so sites see that server's address instead of the one your provider gave you.
Can Websites See My IP Address?
Yes, and it is an ordinary part of how the web works rather than a leak.
A page is delivered over a connection your browser opens to a server. For that connection to exist at all, the server must know where to send data back, so it receives the address of the connection. This is true of every site you visit and of every server involved along the way, including content delivery networks and any third-party resources a page loads.
On its own, that address is a fairly limited piece of information. It identifies a connection, not a person: it is typically shared by everyone on the network and may later be reassigned to someone else. What it can indicate is the provider, the approximate region, and whether a request comes from a data centre rather than a home connection.
If you would rather sites did not see your connection's address, a reputable VPN or a service such as Tor substitutes a different one. That does not make you anonymous by itself, but it does separate the site you visit from the address your provider assigned you.
Is an IP Address Personal Information?
Often, but it depends on the context and on where you are.
Regulators generally take the view that an IP address can be personal data when it can be linked — directly, or with help from a party such as an internet provider — to an identifiable person. Under the GDPR in the European Union that reasoning means IP addresses are frequently treated as personal data, and dynamic addresses have been held to qualify in particular circumstances. Other jurisdictions weigh the question differently, and the rules continue to develop.
This is a genuinely unsettled area and the answer turns on the facts, so nothing here is legal advice. If you need a definitive position for a business, an app or a compliance programme, ask a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction.
What we can tell you is how this site behaves. Your address is used to answer this one request and produce what you see on this page. It is not written to a log we keep, not linked to a profile, and never sold or shared. Our privacy page sets out the details.