Why does my IPv4 address show as shared?

Many providers now place customers behind carrier-grade NAT, so hundreds of subscribers share one public IPv4 address. That is why your router may show a 100.64.x.x address internally while this page shows a different public one.

Can I have both an IPv4 and an IPv6 address?

Yes, and most connections do. This is called dual stack. Your device prefers IPv6 when the destination supports it and falls back to IPv4 otherwise.

What Is My IPv4 Address? — Check Your IPv4 IP Instantly

Q: What is my IPv4 address?

Your IPv4 address is the four-number public address your internet provider assigns to your connection, such as 203.0.113.42. It is shown at the top of this page, read directly from your live connection.

What an IPv4 address is

An IPv4 address is a 32-bit number written as four decimal groups separated by dots, each between 0 and 255 — for example 203.0.113.42. It is the original addressing format of the internet, standardised in 1981, and it remains the one most people mean when they say "IP address".

Thirty-two bits allow roughly 4.3 billion unique addresses. That ceiling was reached in the 2010s, which is why IPv6 exists and why most connections now carry both.

How to check your IPv4 address

The fastest way is the readout at the top of this page: it queries an IPv4-only endpoint, so the answer is always a v4 address even when your browser prefers IPv6 for everything else. If you would rather check from a terminal:

Windows — ipconfig shows your private address; only a site like this one shows the public one.
macOS or Linux — ifconfig or ip addr for private, curl -4 ifconfig.co for public.
Router admin page — usually lists the public WAN address on its status screen.

Note the distinction that trips most people up. ipconfig reports the private address your router handed your device, typically 192.168.x.x. The public IPv4 address that websites actually see is the one on this page. Our WAN IP page explains the difference in full.

Carrier-grade NAT and shared IPv4

Because IPv4 addresses ran out, many providers — mobile operators especially — put customers behind carrier-grade NAT. Hundreds of subscribers then share a single public IPv4 address, and your router is given an address in the 100.64.0.0/10 range instead of a real public one.

You can spot this quickly: if your router's WAN address starts with 100.64 through 100.127 but this page shows something completely different, you are behind CGNAT. The practical consequence is that inbound connections — port forwarding, hosting a game server, reaching a camera from outside — will not work without a workaround or a paid static address.

IPv4 and IPv6 together

Having both is normal and is called dual stack. Your operating system picks IPv6 when both ends support it and silently falls back to IPv4 when they do not. Neither address is more "real" than the other; they are two routes to the same connection.

To see your v6 address on its own, use the IPv6 address checker. For the full comparison between the two, read IPv4 vs IPv6.