Public IP Checker

Find your public IP address — the address websites actually see, not your router's private IP. Understand NAT, static vs dynamic IP, and why your device's IP settings don't match what the internet sees.

Public IP vs. Private IP — What's the Difference?

Why your device's IP is not your public IP: Your device (phone, laptop, smart TV) is assigned a private IP by your router — typically 192.168.1.x, 10.0.0.x, or 172.16.x.x. These addresses exist only within your home network. When traffic leaves your home, your router replaces the private IP with your single public IP through a process called NAT — which is why all your devices appear to share one address to the outside world.
NAT — the translation layer between you and the internet: Network Address Translation (NAT) is how one public IP serves an entire household's worth of devices. Your router keeps a translation table: when your laptop (192.168.1.5) makes a request, the router records the internal IP and port, replaces it with your public IP, and when the response arrives, routes it back to the correct device. Without NAT, every device would need its own public IP.
You cannot find your public IP from device settings: Your phone's "IP address" in Settings, your laptop's ipconfig/ifconfig output, and your router's LAN IP are all private addresses. To find your actual public IP — the one any website or server on the internet sees — you must query an external service, which is exactly what this tool does.
Static vs. dynamic public IP: ISPs default to dynamic public IP assignment — your public IP changes periodically as your DHCP lease renews. Static IPs are permanently assigned and never change, but they typically require a paid business or static IP plan from your ISP. Dynamic IPs are cheaper to provide because ISPs can reuse addresses from subscribers who are temporarily offline.
CGNAT — when your ISP uses NAT on your public IP: Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) is a second layer of NAT deployed by ISPs to extend IPv4 addressing. Instead of getting a dedicated public IP, you share one with multiple households. Your router's WAN interface gets a private IP (often in the 100.64.0.0/10 range), and the ISP's CGNAT gateway translates to the actual public IP. CGNAT breaks port forwarding and makes hosting services from home impossible without workarounds.

Check My IP

How to Check Your Public IP Address

Open this page from the network you want to check: Your public IP is tied to your internet connection, not your device. If you want to check your home public IP, load this page on your home network — switching to mobile data will show your carrier's IP instead.
Read the IPv4 field: The IPv4 address displayed is your public IP — the address all external servers see when your router sends traffic on your behalf. This is the correct address to use for port forwarding rules, remote access setup, and IP whitelisting.
Check whether the ISP field shows your provider: The ISP name should match your home internet provider (e.g., Comcast, BT, Jio, Airtel). If it shows a VPN provider, hosting company, or an unfamiliar name, your traffic is routing through an intermediary before reaching the internet.
Identify CGNAT by comparing with your router's WAN IP: Log into your router admin panel (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and check the WAN IP. If your router's WAN IP starts with 100.64, 10., 172.16-31, or 192.168, but this tool shows a different public IP, your ISP is using CGNAT — you do not have a dedicated public IP.
Determine static vs. dynamic: Check this page at different times over several days. If the IP changes between checks (especially after restarting your router), you have a dynamic IP. If it remains the same consistently, you may have a static IP — confirm with your ISP to be certain.

Real-World Use Case

A small business owner wants to set up a security camera system accessible remotely. They configure their NVR (Network Video Recorder) for remote access, set up port forwarding on their router, and try to connect from their phone — but the connection fails. They use this public IP checker and discover their ISP's WAN IP shown on the router differs from the IP shown here. This confirms their ISP uses CGNAT — their router never received a true public IP, so port forwarding cannot reach the internet. The business owner contacts their ISP, learns they offer a static IP add-on for a monthly fee, upgrades the plan, and the remote camera access works immediately after receiving a dedicated public IP. Without first checking the public IP and comparing it to the router's WAN IP, they would have spent hours troubleshooting camera firmware and router settings rather than the actual CGNAT cause.

Best Practices

Always use an external tool to find your public IP: Never rely on device network settings, router LAN pages, or system commands like ipconfig/ifconfig for your public IP — these all show private addresses. An external IP checker is the only reliable way to see what the internet sees.
Test port forwarding only after confirming you have a true public IP: Port forwarding rules on your router are useless if your ISP uses CGNAT. Before investing time in firewall and port forwarding configuration for self-hosting, confirm you have a dedicated public IP — not a CGNAT-assigned private WAN IP.
Request a static IP if you need reliable remote access: If you are running a home server, VPN, or any internet-facing service, a static IP eliminates the dynamic IP change problem. Most ISPs offer static IP plans — the cost is typically modest compared to the reliability benefit.
Use DDNS as a dynamic IP workaround: If a static IP plan is not available or too expensive, Dynamic DNS services (Cloudflare DDNS, DynDNS, No-IP) map a hostname to your changing public IP and update automatically within minutes of an IP change — providing consistent access without a static IP.
Document your public IP alongside any port forwarding rule you create: When you set up port forwarding rules and need to share access details with others, note the current public IP at the time of setup. If the IP later changes, they will know to request the updated one rather than assuming the configuration is broken.

Performance & Limits

CGNAT detection: This tool shows the externally visible public IP assigned by your ISP's NAT gateway. If you are behind CGNAT, the IP shown is your ISP's shared outbound address — it is not exclusively yours and port forwarding to this IP will not reach your specific household.
Dynamic IP change frequency: DHCP lease durations vary by ISP — typically 24 hours to 7 days for residential connections. Most ISPs also reassign IPs on router reconnection, meaning a router power cycle often triggers an IP change even before the lease expires.
Static IP verification: Even if your ISP claims you have a static IP, verify it periodically — provisioning errors occasionally result in dynamic assignments being applied to supposedly static accounts.
IPv6 and public addressing: Unlike IPv4, where NAT is necessary due to address exhaustion, IPv6 provides enough addresses for every device to have a globally unique public address. On IPv6 networks, your device's IPv6 address may itself be a public address — NAT is not required.
Business static IP reliability: Business-grade static IPs from ISPs are provisioned differently from dynamic consumer IPs — they are not pooled, do not change on reconnection, and are typically supported with SLA guarantees on availability and routing stability.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Attempting port forwarding without a public IP: CGNAT is the most common reason port forwarding silently fails. If your router's WAN IP falls in a private range (10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, 192.168.x.x, or 100.64.x.x), no port forwarding rule will make your service accessible from the internet regardless of how it is configured.
Confusing your router's LAN IP for its WAN IP: The address you use to access your router's admin panel (e.g., 192.168.1.1) is its LAN IP — not its WAN IP. The WAN IP is found in the router's status or internet connection page and represents what it received from the ISP.
Assuming dynamic means the IP changes every hour: Dynamic IPs often remain stable for days or weeks. Some ISPs assign the same IP consistently unless you restart your router. Do not assume your IP changes constantly — check it periodically to understand your ISP's specific behavior.
Using a mobile hotspot IP for server configuration: Mobile carrier IPs are almost always behind heavy CGNAT with no port forwarding capability. Never use a mobile hotspot connection to host a server or configure remote access — a fixed broadband connection with a proper public IP is required.

Privacy & Security

Your public IP is the address your ISP can link to your account: Unlike your private LAN IP, your public IP is logged by every service you connect to. ISPs maintain records of which customer account held which public IP at every point in time — these records can be requested by law enforcement with appropriate legal process.
CGNAT reduces individual traceability slightly: Behind CGNAT, multiple households share a public IP. A log entry with your shared public IP alone does not uniquely identify your household — the ISP's internal CGNAT logs are needed to correlate specific sessions to specific subscribers.
Exposing your public IP in online games or P2P applications: When participating in peer-to-peer connections (gaming, file sharing, video calls), your public IP is disclosed to other participants. This is inherent to direct peer connections — a VPN or relay server prevents direct IP exposure.
No data retained by this tool: Your public IP is detected from the server-side request and displayed only for your reference. No IP addresses are stored, logged, or associated with any user profile.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a public IP and a private IP?

A public IP address is globally unique and routable across the internet — it is assigned by your ISP and is what external servers see when you make any network connection. A private IP address is used only within a local network and is not routable on the internet — they are defined by RFC 1918 as three reserved ranges: 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. Your router assigns private IPs to every device on your network and uses Network Address Translation (NAT) to map those private addresses to your single public IP when connecting to the internet. The distinction matters because firewall rules, server access, and port forwarding all require your public IP — private IPs are invisible to the internet.

What is NAT and why does my router use it?

NAT (Network Address Translation) is the mechanism that allows multiple devices on your home network to share a single public IP address. When your laptop makes a web request, your router replaces the source IP (e.g., 192.168.1.5) and source port with your public IP and an available port on the router. It stores this mapping in a translation table. When the web server sends a response back to your public IP and port, the router looks up the mapping, translates back to the original private IP and port, and forwards the packet to your laptop. NAT was introduced as a temporary workaround for IPv4 address exhaustion and became universal because it also provides a basic degree of firewall-like behavior — unsolicited inbound connections cannot reach devices behind NAT without explicit port forwarding rules.

How do I get a static public IP address?

The standard path to a static public IP is to contact your ISP and request a static IP add-on for your existing plan. Most ISPs offer this service for residential customers (typically at an additional monthly cost) and as a standard feature of business internet plans. If your ISP uses CGNAT and does not offer dedicated public IPs to residential customers, alternatives include: upgrading to a business plan that includes static IP; using a VPN service that provides a dedicated IP (some VPN providers offer this as a paid add-on); running a cloud VM with a reserved/elastic IP as a relay for your home traffic (services like AWS Elastic IP, DigitalOcean Reserved IP, or Vultr's dedicated IPs). For most self-hosting needs, a DDNS service paired with a dynamic IP is a simpler and cheaper solution than pursuing a static IP.

What is CGNAT and why does it break port forwarding?

Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) is a technique ISPs use to conserve IPv4 addresses by placing a second layer of NAT between their customers and the internet. Instead of each subscriber getting a dedicated public IP, groups of subscribers share a public IP at the ISP's gateway. Your router receives a private WAN IP (often in the 100.64.0.0/10 range, reserved by RFC 6598 for CGNAT use), and the ISP's CGNAT gateway translates that to a public IP shared with other customers. Port forwarding fails under CGNAT because port forwarding on your home router only controls traffic arriving at your router's WAN IP — but under CGNAT, inbound internet traffic first arrives at the ISP's CGNAT gateway, which has no mapping for your specific household. The solution is to request a dedicated public IP from your ISP, which bypasses CGNAT.