Why Does My IP Address Keep Changing?

If you check your IP address a few weeks apart and it looks different, nothing is wrong. Most internet providers assign addresses dynamically, which means they can change.

Dynamic vs static IP addresses

A dynamic address is borrowed from a pool and can change. A static address is permanently assigned to you. Home plans are almost always dynamic. Static addresses are mostly sold to businesses, usually for an extra fee, because they are useful for hosting and remote access.

Common reasons your IP changes

• DHCP lease expires. Your router receives its address on a lease. When the lease ends, or the router restarts after the lease has lapsed, the provider can hand out a different one.
• Router or modem restart. A power cut or reboot can trigger a new assignment, particularly if you were offline for a while.
• Provider maintenance. Network changes or migrations can reshuffle customers between address pools.
• Switching networks. Moving from home Wi-Fi to mobile data, or to a coffee shop, obviously changes your address.
• Using a VPN or proxy. Your visible address becomes the server's.

Mobile networks and shared addresses

Mobile carriers and some home providers use carrier-grade NAT, sharing one public address between many customers. Your visible address can change often, and may even appear to be in a different city. It also makes hosting at home hard, because inbound connections cannot reach you. Read public vs private IP addresses for the background.

What about IPv6?

With IPv6, your provider typically delegates a prefix to your router, and devices create their own addresses inside it. Devices also rotate temporary addresses for privacy, so the address a website sees can change within a day even though the prefix does not. More in IPv4 vs IPv6.

Do I need a static IP?

Only if you host a server, need remote access to your home, or must be allow-listed by a service. Before paying for one, consider dynamic DNS. It gives you a stable name such as myhome.example.net that updates automatically whenever your address changes.

How to track your address

Check our IP checker any time, or use the lookup tool to see which provider and region currently own it. If you want a new one on purpose, see how to change your IP address.