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IP Lookup & IP Tracker

Look up any IP address: its location from two databases side by side, who owns it, and whether it's a home line, a phone, a VPN, Tor or a data center.

Locations: IPinfo and DB-IP (October 2026) · Registration: the five regional registries

Looking up…

Finding your IP address…

What does an IP address lookup show?

An IP lookup (also called an IP locator, IP finder or IP checker) tells you where an address is, who it belongs to and what kind of connection it is. To check IP details, type any IPv4 or IPv6 address, or open the page to see your own.

Unlike most lookups, this one doesn't give you a single pin. It asks two independent location databases, IPinfo and DB-IP, and shows how far apart their answers are, because databases often disagree. The owner comes straight from the regional registry's record (RDAP, the successor to WHOIS), with the abuse contact.

IP lookup result: the IP address location from two databases on a map, the owner, the connection type and the registry recordIP lookup result: the IP address location from two databases on a map, the owner, the connection type and the registry recordLocation agreementBoth databases on one map, with the distance between them. Close answers you can trust; far apart means the location is uncertain.Connection typeHome broadband, mobile, data center, VPN, Tor or Private Relay, with the reason we say so.NetworkThe network (AS number) that announces the address, its prefix and its reverse DNS name.RegistrationThe registry's record: the network block, its owner and where to report abuse.
A lookup of a home connection: where two databases place it and how far apart they are, the network behind it, and the registry's record. Select a number to see what each part shows.

How accurate is IP geolocation?

Accurate to the country, rough to the city. MaxMind, the largest geolocation vendor, estimates its data is 99.8% accurate at country level, but for US addresses only about 66% land within 50 km of the right city. Its free database does worse.

No database knows where an address is. They estimate it from registry records, the locations networks publish for their own addresses (geofeeds, RFC 8805), network latency measured from probes, and corrections people send in. Sources weigh these differently, so they often place the same address in different cities.

Published accuracy, United States

MaxMind GeoIP: right country (all countries)
99.8%
MaxMind GeoIP: within 50 km of the city
66%
MaxMind's free GeoLite: within 50 km
55%

MaxMind's own estimates (support article and accuracy comparison, 2026). IPinfo says a CDN's test of about one million addresses found it 93% accurate at city level; it publishes no country figure.

How far off a city answer can be

?
  • 66% Within 50 km of it
  • A city further away
  • ?No city at all

The share of US addresses that land inside the ring is the figure above; the rest are placed in a city further away or get no city.

Why sources disagree

  • Mobile networks

    Phones across a wide area share the carrier's gateways, so the address shows where the gateway is.

  • Shared addresses (CGNAT)

    Many customers share one public IPv4 address, which locates to the provider's gateway, very often a different city.

  • VPNs, proxies and relays

    The address is the exit server's. The person can be anywhere.

  • Anycast

    Addresses such as 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 answer from many data centers at once. Any single pin is wrong.

  • Moved address blocks

    Providers move blocks between cities and countries; databases update monthly or slower.

  • Registry country

    Where a block is registered isn't where it's used. Team Cymru warns its country code is not for geolocation.

Can an IP tracker find someone's exact location?

No. An IP address leads to a city or region at best, never to a household, a person or a street address. Only the internet provider keeps the records that link an address, at a given time, to a customer.

Providers normally release that to authorities under a subpoena or court order. In the US, a subpoena can compel the subscriber's name and address (18 U.S.C. § 2703). In the EU, the Court of Justice ruled in Breyer (2016) that a stored dynamic IP address can be personal data.

What an IP lookup can tell you

  • The country, and roughly the city or region
  • The internet provider or company that owns the address
  • Whether it's a home line, mobile, data center, VPN or Tor
  • Who to contact about abuse

What it can't

  • A name, a street address or a phone number
  • An exact position like GPS
  • Who used a shared address (mobile, CGNAT, public Wi-Fi) at a given moment
  • Where someone behind a VPN or Tor really is
73.162.0.1What a lookup of a home connection shows
Name
Not in any lookup
Street address
Not in any lookup
Phone
Not in any lookup
City and region
Chicago, Illinois
Provider
XfinityAS7922
Connection
Home broadband

Only the provider's records link the address to a customer

From public dataNot in any lookup

Who owns this IP address? (WHOIS IP lookup)

Every public address is registered by one of five regional internet registries (RIRs), which publish who holds each block. The registration card above reads that record over RDAP, the structured successor to WHOIS, straight from the registry: the block, its owner, the dates and the abuse contact.

The owner isn't always who uses the address: a hosting company or ISP holds the block and assigns it to its customers.

The five regional internet registries

  • ARINUnited States, Canada and parts of the Caribbeanrdap.arin.net
  • RIPE NCCEurope, the Middle East and Central Asiardap.db.ripe.net
  • APNICAsia Pacificrdap.apnic.net
  • LACNICLatin America and the Caribbeanrdap.lacnic.net
  • AFRINICAfricardap.afrinic.net

Record over RDAP

How to report abuse from an IP address

  1. 1

    Find the abuse contact

    It's on the registration card above (the abuse role in the registry's record).

  2. 2

    Collect the evidence

    Logs or email headers with the exact date, time and time zone: shared addresses can't be traced without them.

  3. 3

    Send a short report

    The Report abuse button opens an email with the address and the block filled in.

The report, ready to send
To
abuse@example.net
Subject
Abuse report for 203.0.113.42

Hello,


I'm reporting abuse from 203.0.113.42 (network 203.0.113.0/24).


What happened:

When (date, time and time zone):

Evidence (logs, headers):


Thank you.

Report abuseAttach your logs here

Home, mobile, data center, VPN or Tor: what kind of IP is it?

The type tells you more than the city. The tool decides it from the network that owns the address and public lists:

  • Home broadband

    A consumer provider's address. The most reliable location, usually the right city or a nearby one.

    What the pin means: Usually the right city

  • Mobile network

    A carrier's gateway shared by many phones over a large area. The city is often far from the phone.

    What the pin means: A wide area, not the phone

  • Data center

    A cloud or hosting network: a server, or the exit of a VPN or proxy that runs there.

    What the pin means: The server's location

  • Tor exit

    On the Tor Project's own list of exit addresses, updated through the day. The user is somewhere else entirely.

    What the pin means: Nowhere near the user

  • iCloud Private Relay

    Apple publishes its relay addresses. Each stands for a coarse area, and always the user's real country.

    What the pin means: A coarse area in the right country

  • Anycast

    One address served from many places, like public DNS resolvers. It has no single location.

    What the pin means: No single place

IP addresses that have no location

Some ranges never appear on the internet, so no database can place them. The tool says which one an address falls in:

Where these ranges sit in the IPv4 address space
RangeWhat it is
10.0.0.0/8172.16.0.0/12192.168.0.0/16Private networks: homes and offices (RFC 1918)
100.64.0.0/10Inside a provider's carrier-grade NAT (RFC 6598)
127.0.0.0/8::1Loopback: the device itself
169.254.0.0/16fe80::/10Link-local: one local link only
192.0.2.0/24198.51.100.0/24203.0.113.0/242001:db8::/323fff::/20Documentation and examples (RFC 5737, RFC 3849, RFC 9637)
fc00::/7IPv6 unique local addresses (RFC 4193)
224.0.0.0/4ff00::/8Multicast groups
0.0.0.0/8240.0.0.0/4Reserved by IANA

How to fix a wrong IP location

Each database is corrected on its own: MaxMind, IPinfo and DB-IP all take correction requests on their websites, and DB-IP refreshes when the registry record changes.

If you run the network, the lasting fix is a geofeed: a short CSV of your prefixes and their cities (RFC 8805), linked from your block's registry record with a geofeed: attribute (RFC 9632). Every database that reads geofeeds then picks it up.

  1. AnyoneCorrection formMaxMindIPinfoDB-IPOne database at a time
  2. If you run the networkgeofeed.csvYour registry recordEvery database that reads geofeeds
geofeed.csv in the RFC 8805 format
ip_prefix,alpha2code,region,city,postal_code
203.0.113.0/24,DE,DE-BE,Berlin,
2001:db8::/32,DE,DE-BE,Berlin,
Your block's record (RFC 9632)
inetnum:  203.0.113.0/24
geofeed:  https://example.com/geofeed

IP lookup API

The same lookup as JSON, free, with CORS for browsers. Fields stay compatible with our older API; IPinfo's city answers are kept for our pages and server-side callers, and other websites' visitors get DB-IP's.

Your own connection
$ curl https://dnsrobot.net/api/ip-info
Any IP address
$ curl "https://dnsrobot.net/api/ip-info?ip=8.8.8.8"
{
  "query": "8.8.8.8", "hostname": "dns.google",
  "city": "Mountain View", "country": "US", "anycast": true,
  "network": { "asn": 15169, "label": "Google", "kind": "hosting" },
  "dbip": { "city": "Mountain View", "lat": 37.422, "lon": -122.085, … },
  "routing": { "prefix": "8.8.8.0/24", "registry": "arin", … },
  "tor": false, …
}

IP Lookup FAQ

What is an IP lookup?

An IP lookup shows what public databases and registries say about an IP address: its approximate location, the internet provider or company that owns it, the network announcing it and the abuse contact. This one also compares two location databases and tells you whether the address is a home line, a phone, a data center, a VPN or a Tor exit.

How accurate is an IP address lookup?

It's reliable for the country and rough for the city. MaxMind estimates 99.8% country accuracy, but only about 66% of US addresses within 50 km of the right city. Mobile, CGNAT, VPN and anycast addresses are the least accurate. When the two databases here agree within a few kilometres, the answer is more likely to be right.

Can an IP address tracker find someone's exact location?

No. An IP address points to a city or region at best, never to a home, a person or a street address. Only the person's internet provider can link an address to a customer at a given time, and it normally releases that to authorities under a subpoena or court order. Websites that promise a house address are guessing.

Why do IP location databases disagree?

Each one estimates the location from a different mix of registry records, published geofeeds, latency measurements and user corrections, and each updates on its own schedule. Mobile carriers, shared CGNAT addresses, VPNs and moved address blocks are where they differ most. That's why this page shows both answers and the distance between them instead of one pin.

Is it legal to look up an IP address?

Yes, looking up an address uses public data: the regional registries publish who holds each block so networks can contact each other, and geolocation databases are sold and shared openly. The address alone doesn't identify a person. What you do with it is another matter: harassment and stalking are illegal whatever the method.

Can an IP lookup detect a VPN, proxy or Tor?

Often, not always. Tor exits are certain: the Tor Project publishes their addresses, and the tool checks that list. VPNs and proxies usually run in data centers, so a hosting network is a strong sign. iCloud Private Relay addresses are published by Apple. A VPN on a home or mobile address can't be told apart from a normal user.

Who owns this IP address, and how do I report abuse?

The registration card shows the owner from the regional registry's record, with the abuse contact. Email that address with the exact date, time and time zone of the problem and any logs or email headers; the Report abuse button fills in the address and the network block for you. Without a timestamp, a shared address can't be traced.

Why does my IP show the wrong city?

Your address is placed where your provider's equipment or address block is registered, which can be a city or even a region away. Mobile data, carrier-grade NAT and VPNs make it worse. Your provider can publish a geofeed, or you can send a correction to MaxMind, IPinfo or DB-IP; each updates on its own schedule.

Does the IP lookup work with IPv6?

Yes. IPv6 addresses get the same location, network, reverse DNS and registry record as IPv4. About half of Google's users now reach it over IPv6. If you have both, the page shows your other address so you can look it up too. Providers are advised to give each home a whole block of IPv6 addresses (a /56 or /48), not a single one.

What is the difference between an IP lookup and a WHOIS lookup?

WHOIS (today RDAP) is the registry's record: who holds the address block, since when and who handles abuse. An IP lookup adds what the registry doesn't say: where the address is used, which network announces it, its reverse DNS name and what kind of connection it is. This page shows both, and the WHOIS Lookup tool also covers domains.

Is the IP lookup free, and do you keep the addresses?

It's free, with no account and no limit for normal use. We don't keep the addresses you look up. The address is sent to IPinfo for its location answer, DB-IP's answer comes from our own copy of its free database, and your browser asks the registry for the registration record directly, so the registry sees your address.

What is an anycast IP address?

An anycast address is announced from many places at once, and each user reaches the nearest one. Public DNS resolvers like Google's 8.8.8.8 and Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 work this way. Location databases still give such addresses a single city, which is meaningless, so this page marks them anycast and doesn't claim a place.

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