169.254 IP Address (APIPA): What It Means and How to Fix

A 169.254 IP address means your device asked the network for an address, got no answer, and gave itself one. Windows calls this APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing), and the standard name is an IPv4 link-local address. While you have one, you can reach other devices on the same cable or Wi-Fi at best, but not the internet. The usual fix is to restart the router and renew the address, covered step by step below.

What is APIPA?

APIPA is what a device does when it is set to get its address automatically and the DHCP server, normally your router, does not reply. The rules come from RFC 3927. The device picks an address at random between 169.254.1.0 and 169.254.254.255, checks with an ARP probe that no other device on the network already uses it, and keeps it until a proper address arrives. The first and last 256 addresses of 169.254.0.0/16 are reserved and never chosen.

Routers must not forward packets to or from these addresses, so a 169.254 address only works on the local link. There is no gateway and no route to the internet, which is why the connection icon shows a warning even though Wi-Fi appears connected.

Why did I get a 169.254 address?

Something stopped the DHCP exchange between your device and the router. Common causes:

The router is off, still starting up or has frozen.
The Wi-Fi link is weak or dropped while the device was asking for an address.
The Ethernet cable or port is faulty.
DHCP is turned off in the router, or its pool of addresses is used up because too many devices are connected.
Firewall or VPN software on the device is blocking the request.
The network adapter's driver is out of date or misbehaving.

How to check your IP address

Windows: open Command Prompt and run ipconfig /all. Look at the IPv4 address of the adapter you use. Microsoft notes that ipconfig shows whether a setting came from DHCP or from APIPA.
Mac: open System Settings, select Network, pick your connection, click Details and then TCP/IP. macOS may also say the connection has a self-assigned IP address.
iPhone and Android: open the Wi-Fi settings and tap the network you are on to see its IP address.

If the address starts with 169.254 and no router address is listed, DHCP has failed. A working setup shows a private address such as 192.168.1.20 and a default gateway.

How to fix a 169.254 IP address

Restart the router and modem. Unplug them, wait 30 seconds, plug the modem in first and then the router, and give them a couple of minutes.
Renew the address. On Windows, run ipconfig /release and then ipconfig /renew. On a Mac, go to System Settings, Network, your connection, Details, TCP/IP, and click Renew DHCP Lease.
Reconnect. Forget the Wi-Fi network and join it again, or try another cable and router port.
Turn off VPN and firewall software for a moment and renew again. If that works, add an exception.
Check the router's DHCP settings. Make sure DHCP is on and the address pool is larger than the number of devices you own.
Update or reinstall the network adapter's driver, or reset the network settings on the device.
If only one device fails while others work, the problem is that device. If every device gets a 169.254 address, it is the router.

When a 169.254 address is normal

Link-local addresses are useful when no DHCP server exists. Two computers joined directly by a cable can talk to each other with 169.254 addresses, and some printers and network gadgets use one during setup.

Cloud servers use one special address in the range on purpose. On Amazon EC2, the instance metadata service lives at 169.254.169.254, and AWS documents it as a link-local address that is valid only from inside the instance.

What about IPv6 fe80 addresses?

IPv6 has its own link-local range, fe80::/10, and every IPv6 interface is required to have one, per RFC 4291. Seeing an fe80 address next to a working IPv4 address is normal and is not a fault. Like 169.254, routers never forward it.

Frequently asked questions

Is 169.254 a private IP address?

It is not one of the private ranges in RFC 1918 (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16). It is a separate link-local range, and it is even more limited, because it never leaves the local network segment. Our guide to public and private IP addresses covers the difference.

Can a 169.254 address reach the internet?

No. Routers are required to drop traffic to and from link-local addresses, so you need a real address from DHCP or a manual setting.

What is 169.254.169.254?

It is the address cloud platforms such as Amazon EC2 use for their instance metadata service. It is reachable only from inside the cloud server.

Will my device fix itself?

Often, yes. A device with a link-local address keeps using DHCP as normal, and once a routable address works it must use that one for new connections, according to RFC 3927.

Sources and further reading

Try it yourself

See the real numbers for your own connection with our free tools.