IP Address Lookup

Look up what information is associated with your IP address — country, region, city, ISP, ASN, and timezone. Understand how IP geolocation works, its accuracy limits, and what it means for your privacy.

What an IP Address Lookup Reveals

Country — the most reliable field (~99% accurate): Country-level geolocation is highly accurate because ISPs register their IP blocks with Regional Internet Registries (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC) by country of operation. Errors are rare and mainly occur for VPN exit nodes, satellite internet providers, and multinational ISPs that register blocks in headquarters countries rather than deployment countries.
Region and city — progressively less accurate (~60–80%): City-level geolocation is derived from how ISPs subdivide their IP blocks across their network, not from any GPS or physical infrastructure mapping. ISPs frequently register large IP ranges under a single city (often their headquarters) even when those IPs are deployed across multiple cities or regions. City accuracy is typically 60–80%, and results can be off by 50–300 km.
ISP and organization (~95% accurate): The ISP name and organization are read from WHOIS records tied to the IP block — this is very accurate for established ISPs. Recently transferred blocks (sold on the IPv4 secondary market) may temporarily show the previous owner until WHOIS records are updated and geolocation databases are refreshed.
Timezone — derived from location: Timezone is not directly stored in IP databases — it is calculated from the latitude/longitude coordinates associated with the IP's geolocated city. Since city-level geolocation is approximate, timezone can be incorrectly inferred for IPs near timezone boundaries or for IPs geolocated to the wrong city.
ASN (Autonomous System Number) — highly accurate: The ASN identifies the routing entity that controls the IP block — an ISP, CDN, hosting provider, or enterprise network. ASN lookup is nearly 100% accurate because AS numbers are formally registered and essential for internet routing. ASNs are used by security systems to classify IP types (residential, data center, VPN, Tor) and make trust decisions.

Check My IP

How to Use the IP Address Lookup

Load the page to see your IP's associated data: When you open this tool, your IP address is automatically detected and a geolocation lookup is performed. The results show your IP's registered country, region, city, ISP, ASN, and derived timezone — all from the same databases commercial services use.
Interpret the location data as approximate: The city shown is where your IP block is registered, not necessarily where you are sitting. If the city is incorrect, this is expected — ISPs register blocks in administrative locations that may not match the deployment geography. Country-level data is far more reliable than city-level data.
Read the ISP field to understand your network path: The ISP name identifies who owns the IP block your connection is using. If you are on a VPN, this will show the VPN provider's hosting company. If on mobile data, it shows your mobile carrier. If on home broadband, it shows your home ISP.
Note the ASN for network classification: The ASN allows you to determine whether your IP is classified as residential, mobile, data center, or VPN/proxy. Security systems use ASN classification to make access decisions — data center ASNs are often treated as higher-risk than residential ASNs for fraud detection purposes.
Compare your real IP data with VPN-masked data: Connect to a VPN, refresh the page, and compare the before and after lookup results. The ISP, ASN, country, and city fields should all change to reflect the VPN server's registered location — confirming the VPN is masking your real geolocation data.

Real-World Use Case

An e-commerce company notices a spike in fraudulent orders all shipped to freight forwarders, with payments from newly created accounts. Their fraud team runs an IP address lookup on the transaction IPs and finds a pattern: all orders come from IPs with data center ASNs (not residential ISPs), geolocated in one country but ordering with shipping addresses in another. The IP lookup reveals the ASN belongs to a hosting company known for VPN and proxy exit nodes. The fraud team adds a rule flagging orders where the IP's ASN is classified as data center or proxy and the billing country mismatches the IP geolocation country — reducing fraudulent orders by 60% without blocking legitimate customers. The IP geolocation and ASN data provided signals that device fingerprinting and billing address alone could not detect.

Best Practices

Use country-level geolocation for access control, not city-level: Country geolocation is reliable enough for content licensing and regulatory compliance decisions. City-level geolocation has too much variability (60–80% accuracy) to serve as a reliable basis for access control — use it for analytics and UX personalization, not security gating.
Cross-reference ASN with known VPN and proxy ASN lists: Public lists of VPN provider ASNs, Tor exit node IPs, and data center IP ranges are maintained by services like MaxMind, IPinfo, and abuse.ch. Cross-referencing IP lookups against these lists provides better proxy/VPN detection than location data alone.
Account for mobile IP geolocation inaccuracy: Mobile carrier IPs often geolocate to the cell tower or carrier gateway location, not the device's physical location. A user on mobile data in a rural area may geolocate to a major city where the carrier's gateway is located — this is normal and should not be treated as anomalous.
Refresh geolocation data for recently transferred IP blocks: If your service relies on IP geolocation and you acquire a new IP range (e.g., from a cloud provider or secondary market purchase), verify the geolocation data is accurate in major databases (MaxMind, IP2Location) and submit correction requests if not.
Understand the difference between geolocation and identity: IP lookup reveals network characteristics — ISP, approximate location, connection type. It does not identify the person behind the IP. Treat IP geolocation data as one signal among many in security and analytics workflows, not as definitive user identification.

Performance & Limits

Geolocation database sources: The major commercial IP geolocation databases are MaxMind GeoIP2, IP2Location, IPinfo.io, and DB-IP. Each maintains its own database updated on different schedules (weekly to monthly). Accuracy varies slightly between providers — no single database is definitively correct for all IP ranges.
Database update lag: When ISPs reconfigure their networks, sell IP blocks, or expand into new regions, geolocation databases take days to weeks to reflect the change. During this period, affected IPs will geolocate to their old location, causing legitimate mismatches that are not VPN or proxy related.
Satellite internet geolocation: Satellite internet providers (Starlink, HughesNet, Viasat) often geolocate to the ground station or network operations center rather than the user's satellite dish location — users in remote areas may geolocate to a completely different region or country.
Corporate network geolocation: Enterprises that route employee internet traffic through a central corporate gateway will have all employee traffic appearing to originate from the gateway's IP and location — employees working from home through a corporate VPN will appear to be in the corporate headquarters city.
IPv6 geolocation limitations: IPv6 geolocation databases are less mature than IPv4 databases — ISPs have been less consistent in registering IPv6 block geography with RIRs, leading to higher inaccuracy rates for IPv6 addresses compared to the same ISP's IPv4 addresses.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Treating city-level geolocation as precise location data: A city-level geolocated IP could place you anywhere within a 50–300 km radius of the registered city. Never use IP geolocation to determine someone's street, neighborhood, or building — it cannot provide that resolution, and assuming it can leads to incorrect conclusions and potential false accusations.
Blocking entire countries based on IP geolocation alone: Country-level IP blocking based solely on geolocation will block VPN users whose exit nodes are in that country (regardless of the user's real location) while missing users from that country who use VPNs exiting elsewhere. Geolocation-based blocking is approximate and will always have both false positives and false negatives.
Assuming a mismatch between IP location and user's claimed location means fraud: Many legitimate reasons cause IP location mismatches: corporate VPNs, ISP routing through another region, mobile carrier gateway locations, satellite internet, CDN edge nodes, or simply inaccurate geolocation databases. Treat location mismatch as one risk signal, not definitive evidence of fraud.
Neglecting ASN data when building IP-based security rules: ISP name alone is insufficient for security classification. The ASN provides a more reliable and granular identifier of the network type — the same ISP may have multiple ASNs for residential, business, and data center segments with very different risk profiles.

Privacy & Security

IP geolocation data is publicly available to any website you visit: Every website you visit automatically receives your IP and can perform a geolocation lookup without your knowledge or consent. This is an inherent property of how IP-based internet routing works — there is no technical mechanism to prevent websites from seeing your IP.
VPNs replace your geolocation data with the VPN server's data: When you use a VPN, websites see the VPN server's IP and its associated geolocation (country, city, ISP, ASN) instead of yours. This is the primary mechanism by which VPNs provide location-based privacy — your real network characteristics are replaced with those of the VPN exit node.
Tor provides stronger geolocation obfuscation than VPNs: Tor routes traffic through multiple nodes, with the final exit node's IP visible to the destination. Unlike VPNs where a single provider sees both your real IP and your traffic, Tor separates knowledge — no single node knows both your origin and your destination. However, Tor exit node IPs are publicly listed and often blocked by services.
No data retained by this tool: Your IP address lookup is performed at page load for display purposes only. No IP addresses, geolocation results, or session data are stored, logged, or shared with third parties.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is IP address geolocation?

IP geolocation accuracy varies significantly by granularity level. Country-level accuracy is approximately 95–99% for most databases — errors occur mainly for satellite internet, VPN traffic, and multinational ISPs that register IP blocks in headquarters countries. Region/state-level accuracy drops to approximately 80%. City-level accuracy is typically 60–80%, and results can be off by 50 to several hundred kilometers — ISPs register large IP blocks under a single administrative city regardless of where individual IPs are deployed. Coordinate-level data (latitude/longitude) should be treated as an estimate for the registered city, not the device's physical location. For the highest accuracy, MaxMind GeoIP2 City is the industry standard, though even it acknowledges inherent limitations at sub-city resolution.

Can an IP address reveal my exact home address?

No — an IP address cannot reveal your home address, street, or physical location. IP geolocation identifies the approximate city and ISP associated with an IP block — the resolution is limited to city-level at best, often only to the ISP's registered city (which may be different from your actual city). The only way to obtain the subscriber identity (name, address, account details) for a specific IP address is through the ISP's records, which ISPs only release under court order or valid legal process to law enforcement. A private individual or company cannot obtain your personal information from your IP address alone — they would need legal authority and ISP cooperation. The city shown by IP lookup is the ISP's registered location for the block, not a GPS coordinate of your home.

How do I hide my IP geolocation from websites?

The primary method to hide your real IP geolocation is a VPN (Virtual Private Network). When connected to a VPN, your browser's traffic exits through the VPN server, so websites see the VPN server's IP and its associated geolocation — not yours. Choose a VPN server in your desired visible location. A second option is the Tor network, which routes traffic through multiple relays — the destination sees only the exit node's IP. For specific browser requests, SOCKS5 proxies can route traffic through a proxy server in a different location. Note that some websites actively detect and block known VPN and proxy IP ranges (by checking ASNs against VPN provider lists), which can cause access issues — residential VPN providers or mobile proxy services are harder to detect but more expensive.

What is an ASN and what does it tell you about an IP address?

An ASN (Autonomous System Number) is a unique identifier assigned to a network that independently manages its own routing policies on the internet. Every ISP, hosting company, CDN, and large enterprise that connects directly to the internet backbone has one or more ASNs. For IP address lookup purposes, the ASN identifies the type of network your IP belongs to: residential ISP ASNs (e.g., Comcast AS7922, Jio AS55836) indicate consumer internet connections; data center ASNs (e.g., Amazon AWS AS16509, DigitalOcean AS14061) indicate cloud or hosting infrastructure; VPN provider ASNs (e.g., Mullvad AS39351, NordVPN AS9009) indicate privacy service usage. Security systems use ASN classification to make trust and fraud decisions — a login from a data center ASN is treated as higher risk than from a residential ISP ASN, regardless of the geolocation data.