Private IP Address

Reserved Private Ranges

RFC 1918 defines three IPv4Internet Protocol version 4. The fourth revision of IP using 32-bit addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.1), providing approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses. Still the most widely used internet protocol despite address exhaustion. address ranges permanently reserved for private use:

These addresses are not globally routable — internet routers drop packets destined for private ranges at their borders. Devices using private IPs reach the internet through NATNetwork Address Translation. A method of remapping private IP addresses to a single public IP address (and vice versa) at a router, allowing multiple devices to share one public IP. A key technique for mitigating IPv4 address exhaustion., which translates outbound traffic to a Public IP AddressA globally unique IP address assigned by an ISP that is routable on the public internet. Every device directly accessible from the internet must have a public IP address..

Why Private IPs Exist

The internet's IPv4Internet Protocol version 4. The fourth revision of IP using 32-bit addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.1), providing approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses. Still the most widely used internet protocol despite address exhaustion. address space is insufficient for every device to have a unique Public IP AddressA globally unique IP address assigned by an ISP that is routable on the public internet. Every device directly accessible from the internet must have a public IP address.. Private addressing combined with NATNetwork Address Translation. A method of remapping private IP addresses to a single public IP address (and vice versa) at a router, allowing multiple devices to share one public IP. A key technique for mitigating IPv4 address exhaustion. allows homes and enterprises to deploy thousands of devices using the same 192.168.x.x range internally, without consuming scarce public addresses.

Cloud providers use 10.0.0.0/8 internally for Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). Your AWS or GCP instances likely have private IPs in this range, with NATNetwork Address Translation. A method of remapping private IP addresses to a single public IP address (and vice versa) at a router, allowing multiple devices to share one public IP. A key technique for mitigating IPv4 address exhaustion. gateways or load balancers handling public-facing traffic.

Private IPs and IPv6

IPv6Internet Protocol version 6. The successor to IPv4 using 128-bit addresses (e.g., 2001:0db8::1), providing a virtually unlimited address space of 3.4 x 10^38 addresses. Designed to solve IPv4 address exhaustion. introduces unique local addresses (fc00::/7, often written as fd00::/8 in practice) as an analogous concept — routable within an organization but not on the public internet. However, since IPv6Internet Protocol version 6. The successor to IPv4 using 128-bit addresses (e.g., 2001:0db8::1), providing a virtually unlimited address space of 3.4 x 10^38 addresses. Designed to solve IPv4 address exhaustion. provides enough globally unique addresses for every device, unique-local addresses are less commonly deployed than their IPv4 counterparts.

Use IP Lookup to confirm whether an address is private or public. Private addresses will not return geolocation data.