Someone has my IP address - what can they do with it?

The number is already visible to every site you connect to; it is not a password and it does not by itself let anyone into your accounts, reach your name or find your home address. Where addresses are shared between subscribers (CGNAT), the address is often not even uniquely yours.

Why is the IP in my router different from the one on this page?

If your router shows an address starting 192.168, that is the local address inside your home and it never leaves it. If the router's WAN (internet) address differs from the number on this page, the public address is not yours alone: one starting between 100.64 and 100.127 is shared address space, and one starting 10. or between 172.16 and 172.31 means the same thing with a different range. Either way the outside world sees the number on this page, and port forwarding will not work. If your router is in bridge mode, you will not see the WAN address on the router at all.

How do I change my IP address?

On a dynamic connection, leaving the router switched off for a while and back on may change it - but there is no guarantee, and the provider can reassign the same address. A phone on mobile data already has a different address from your home connection. If you need it permanently fixed, that is a paid static IP add-on rather than something you can do yourself.

A website says my IP address is blocked. What happened?

The site has most likely blocked the address you are using rather than you. Where the address is shared between subscribers, the block may have been triggered by someone else entirely. On a dynamic connection, access often returns once the address is renewed; if it does not, the site's own support channel is the right route.

Can I just ask an AI chatbot what my IP address is?

You can, but the answer will not be reliable. When a language model looks at the web it usually sees the address of its own server, so the number it gives you is typically its data centre's, not yours. Some chat interfaces state in their own documentation that they pass the model a rough location derived from your IP address (OpenAI help centre). Beyond that, one case was recorded in which a model reported a user's public IP address directly, but it could not be reproduced and the writer who looked into it said he never got to the bottom of what was going on (simonwillison.net, 4 November 2024). In short, there is no consistent behaviour here. The trustworthy value is the one measured over your own connection.

Is an IP address personal data?

Yes, to the extent it makes a person identifiable. In Breyer (C-582/14, 19 October 2016) the Court of Justice of the EU held that a dynamic IP address is personal data for a website operator who has legal means to identify the user with the additional information held by that person's internet provider. This page reads your address only to show it to you; what we do with data generally is set out in our privacy policy.

IP LOOKUP

What is my IP address?

Your IP address, as the internet sees it

216.73.216.213

Address type: IPv4

The country shows where your connection appears to come from, not your home address. Your browser and operating system are not read from your IP address - they come from the line your browser sends to identify itself on every request.

Your address is above; copy it, hand it to whoever asked, and close the page if that is all you needed. Everything below explains that one number: which kind of address it is, why it changes, whether it is really yours alone, and, most importantly, what it does not say. There is no city guess, no map and no "your provider" label on this page. We have written down why, with the numbers.

What exactly is this number?

It is the address the other side sees when you go online. The website you visit, the game server you join, the mail server carrying your email - they all see this number. When somebody asks you for "your IP address", this is what they mean.

The 192.168.1.1 you type in to reach your router's settings is not this number. That one stays inside your home and is invisible from outside. An IPv4 address identifies your connection, not your device: the phone, the laptop and the TV on the same Wi-Fi all appear to the outside world with the same IPv4 address. With IPv6 it works differently - there each device gets its own global address.

When your phone leaves Wi-Fi and switches to mobile data, this page shows a different number. Both are correct; what changed is who handed out the address.

The page also shows your browser and operating system. Those do not come from your IP address - they are read from the line your browser sends to identify itself on every request (the User-Agent). A fair amount of what gets described as "revealed by your IP" is in fact volunteered by your device.

Is yours IPv4 or IPv6?

Look at the shape. Four numbers separated by dots, like 86.44.0.1, is IPv4. Hexadecimal groups separated by colons, like 2a01:4ff:f0:3a96::1, is IPv6. Which one you are using is written next to the number above.

The difference is length: an IPv4 address is 32 bits, which is roughly 4.3 billion addresses in total; an IPv6 address is 128 bits. That scarcity is exactly why IPv6 exists. RIPE NCC, which allocates addresses for Europe, announced on 25 November 2019 that it had made the final allocation from its IPv4 pool and had run out (ripe.net).

If you see IPv4, nothing is broken and nothing is missing - it depends on your provider's network, not on you. In APNIC Labs' daily measurement for Ireland, IPv6 capability ranges from 87.10% on Sky's network (AS5607, registered to Sky UK Limited) and 73.75% on eir's mobile network (AS15751) to 71.52% on eir (AS5466) and 59.85% on Liberty Global (AS6830), against 0.29% on both Three Ireland (AS13280) and Vodafone Ireland (AS15502) (stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6/IE, checked 12 September 2026). These figures move, which is why we date them.

This address may not be yours alone

You may be sharing this address with other subscribers. Because IPv4 addresses ran out, providers can hand a single public address to many subscribers at the same time; the technique is called carrier-grade NAT, or CGNAT. There is no public measurement of how many connections in Ireland sit behind it, so we are not going to estimate - instead, here is how to check your own connection.

We cannot see inside your router, but you can. Open your router's settings and look at the WAN (internet) address. If it matches the number at the top of this page, the public address is genuinely yours. If it is different, the public address is not yours alone: an address starting between 100.64 and 100.127 is the shared address space set aside for exactly this purpose, and an address starting 10. or between 172.16 and 172.31 means the same thing, with your provider using that range instead. If your router is in bridge mode you will not see this address on the router at all. RFC 6598 requires that packets addressed to the shared address space must not be forwarded across service provider boundaries. In practice that means anything expecting an inbound connection will fail - port forwarding, hosting a game server, reaching a home camera from outside.

This is why "your IP address is your personal ID number" is simply wrong for a great many connections. It is also why an IP ban on some website may have nothing to do with anything you did: it can be someone else who shares the address with you.

Why does my IP address keep changing?

Changing is normal. It is not a fault and it is not a security problem. Home connections are dynamic by default. Virgin Media Ireland puts it plainly on its own support page: "All residential Virgin Media customers are provided with a Dynamic IP address. This means that the IP address will change from time to time." (virginmedia.ie, checked 12 September 2026.) The address is leased to you from a pool, and it can change when the router restarts or when the provider renews the lease.

The structural reason is the one above - addresses ran out in 2019, so they are recycled rather than owned. The reverse is not guaranteed either: power-cycling the router may change your address, but the provider can hand the same one straight back. Switching provider, on the other hand, always changes it, because you are drawing from a different pool.

If you genuinely need the address to stay put - remote access, hosting something at home, an employer's allow list - that is a static IP, and it is not a plan feature. On residential plans it is often not sold at all: Virgin Media Ireland states on its own support page that all residential customers get a dynamic IP and that a static IP requires a business account (virginmedia.ie, checked 12 September 2026). Where it is sold, it is a separate paid add-on; we are not quoting a single price because it differs by provider - check the provider's own page. Add-ons like this rarely appear in the headline monthly price but do appear on the bill every month - which is the whole reason we compare plans on what you actually pay per month.

What this page cannot know

This page can see your IP address, whether it is IPv4 or IPv6, the country your connection appears to come from, and what your browser reports about itself. It cannot see your name, your phone number or your home address, and it cannot reliably tell which town you are in.

We could print a city guess. We do not, and the reason is the measurement published by the company that sells the guess. In MaxMind's own accuracy comparison tool, the paid GeoIP2 City database locates an Irish address to the correct city only 21.1% of the time: 43.0% of the time it names a city and names the wrong one, and for 35.9% it has no city-level data at all. Even allowing a 50 km margin it is right 44.7% of the time (maxmind.com accuracy comparison, Ireland, checked 12 September 2026). Cloudflare says the same thing in its own documentation: IP geolocation is "an estimate, not an exact science", and it offers no accuracy guarantee. There is no map pin here either - a pin visually erases the uncertainty underneath it. Country level is far more reliable, so country is what we show. We also do not print "your provider", because the registered owner of an address block and the company that bills you are not always the same in wholesale and resale arrangements.

On identity the answer is equally clear: a website or a person who knows your IP address cannot get into your accounts and cannot get your name. The party that can match an address to a subscriber is your provider - and where the address is shared between subscribers, the address alone is not enough for that either: the source port and the time are needed as well. Under the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act 2022 - in force since 26 June 2023 - providers in Ireland must retain "internet source data" - the IP address allocated to the source of a communication, and the name and address of the subscriber it was allocated to - for one year, a period the Minister may extend to up to two years (irishstatutebook.ie, Act No. 25 of 2022, in force since 26 June 2023). That data is reached through a legal process, not by the website you happen to be visiting. An IP address can also be personal data in its own right: in Breyer (C-582/14, 19 October 2016) the Court of Justice of the EU held that a dynamic IP address is personal data for a website operator who has legal means of identifying the user with the provider's help.

If you use a VPN, this page shows the VPN provider's address. A VPN changes the address websites see; it does not stop your traffic passing through that company instead, and it does not stop sites recognising you from your account or your cookies.

IP LOOKUP

Frequently asked questions

Someone has my IP address - what can they do with it?: The number is already visible to every site you connect to; it is not a password and it does not by itself let anyone into your accounts, reach your name or find your home address. Where addresses are shared between subscribers (CGNAT), the address is often not even uniquely yours.
Why is the IP in my router different from the one on this page?: If your router shows an address starting 192.168, that is the local address inside your home and it never leaves it. If the router's WAN (internet) address differs from the number on this page, the public address is not yours alone: one starting between 100.64 and 100.127 is shared address space, and one starting 10. or between 172.16 and 172.31 means the same thing with a different range. Either way the outside world sees the number on this page, and port forwarding will not work. If your router is in bridge mode, you will not see the WAN address on the router at all.
How do I change my IP address?: On a dynamic connection, leaving the router switched off for a while and back on may change it - but there is no guarantee, and the provider can reassign the same address. A phone on mobile data already has a different address from your home connection. If you need it permanently fixed, that is a paid static IP add-on rather than something you can do yourself.
A website says my IP address is blocked. What happened?: The site has most likely blocked the address you are using rather than you. Where the address is shared between subscribers, the block may have been triggered by someone else entirely. On a dynamic connection, access often returns once the address is renewed; if it does not, the site's own support channel is the right route.
Can I just ask an AI chatbot what my IP address is?: You can, but the answer will not be reliable. When a language model looks at the web it usually sees the address of its own server, so the number it gives you is typically its data centre's, not yours. Some chat interfaces state in their own documentation that they pass the model a rough location derived from your IP address (OpenAI help centre). Beyond that, one case was recorded in which a model reported a user's public IP address directly, but it could not be reproduced and the writer who looked into it said he never got to the bottom of what was going on (simonwillison.net, 4 November 2024). In short, there is no consistent behaviour here. The trustworthy value is the one measured over your own connection.
Is an IP address personal data?: Yes, to the extent it makes a person identifiable. In Breyer (C-582/14, 19 October 2016) the Court of Justice of the EU held that a dynamic IP address is personal data for a website operator who has legal means to identify the user with the additional information held by that person's internet provider. This page reads your address only to show it to you; what we do with data generally is set out in our privacy policy.

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