Countries With the Most IP Addresses in 2026

The United States has the most IP addresses by far: about 1.61 billion IPv4 addresses, or 44% of everything handed out worldwide. China is a distant second with 343 million, followed by Japan, the UK and Germany, and together the top 10 hold three of every four registered IPv4 addresses.

Those figures are our own count, made on 20 October 2026 from the daily files of all five regional internet registries. We added up every IPv4 block listed as allocated or assigned, by the country it is registered to, and repeated the count for IPv6. Below you’ll find the full top 10, the ranking per person, who leads in IPv6, which organizations hold the biggest blocks and why other sites show different numbers.

Top 10 countries by IP addresses#

#	Country	IPv4 addresses	Share of world	Registry
1	United States	1,606,315,680	43.6%	ARIN
2	China	342,984,960	9.3%	APNIC
3	Japan	188,705,088	5.1%	APNIC
4	United Kingdom	138,719,808	3.8%	RIPE NCC
5	Germany	126,404,224	3.4%	RIPE NCC
6	South Korea	112,497,920	3.1%	APNIC
7	France	81,587,792	2.2%	RIPE NCC
8	Brazil	79,321,344	2.2%	LACNIC
9	Canada	67,843,072	1.8%	ARIN
10	Italy	54,086,016	1.5%	RIPE NCC

The next five are the Netherlands (47.9 million), Australia (46.1 million), Russia (45.2 million), India (42.0 million) and Taiwan (35.7 million).

In total, 3.69 billion of the 4.29 billion possible IPv4 addresses are registered to someone. Most of the rest can never be handed out, because they are reserved for private networks, multicast and other special uses.

Why other sites show different numbers#

If you compare rankings, you’ll see the US at 1.61 billion on some sites and at about 1.2 billion on others. Both can be right, because they count different things. Registry counts like ours show which country each block is registered to. Geolocation databases instead estimate where each address is actually used, so a block registered to a US company but announced from Frankfurt counts as German there. A third method counts only addresses that are visible in global routing. None of them is wrong, but you should check which one a ranking uses before comparing countries.

How IP addresses are handed out#

IP addresses flow down a three-step chain:

1. IANA manages the global pool and gives large blocks to five regional registries.
2. Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) give blocks to their members: internet providers, hosting companies, large enterprises and universities.
3. Providers assign addresses to customers, usually dynamically, and often share one public address among many users.

Registry	Region
ARIN	United States, Canada, parts of the Caribbean
RIPE NCC	Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia
APNIC	Asia-Pacific
LACNIC	Latin America and most of the Caribbean
AFRINIC	Africa

Why the US has so many#

Addresses were handed out long before the registries existed. In the 1980s and early 1990s, US universities, government agencies and companies received whole “Class A” blocks of 16.7 million addresses each, often simply by asking. Most of those legacy blocks are still held today, which is why the US alone has more IPv4 addresses than the next 20 countries combined.

IPv4 has run out#

IANA handed out its last blocks in February 2011, and since then the registries have run their own pools down to almost nothing. On 20 October 2026, ARIN had no free IPv4 addresses left, RIPE NCC and LACNIC had a few thousand between them, and only AFRINIC (about 0.59 million) and APNIC (about 2.9 million) still had a usable reserve. APNIC rations even that: each member can get at most 512 addresses in total.

That’s why most IPv4 addresses now change hands on a transfer market. In September 2026, small blocks sold for about $23 per address and blocks of 65,000 addresses or more for about $14, while leasing cost roughly $0.35 to $0.45 per address per month. Because new space comes only from sales between companies, country rankings move slowly, and growth has shifted to IPv6.

The top 10, country by country#

1. United States: 1.61 billion#

The US holds almost half of the world’s IPv4 space, and a large part of it sits in legacy blocks. The Department of Defense alone holds 13 full /8 blocks, about 218 million addresses. Amazon has bought its way to roughly 178 million, and Apple, Ford, AT&T and Comcast each hold a full /8. Many of these addresses are used far outside the US, in cloud regions around the world.

2. China: 343 million#

China is second in total, but with only about one address for every four people. The big three operators, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, rely heavily on address sharing (carrier-grade NAT). Since a 2017 government action plan, China has pushed IPv6 as national policy, and it now holds the second-largest share of IPv6 space.

3. Japan: 189 million#

Japan received generous allocations early, and its main providers, NTT, KDDI and SoftBank, still hold them. SoftBank alone uses about 92% of the 126.0.0.0/8 block.

4. United Kingdom: 139 million#

The UK ranks just above Germany, partly because of one legacy block: the Ministry of Defence holds all of 25.0.0.0/8, nearly 17 million addresses. BT, Virgin Media and Vodafone hold most of the rest.

5. Germany: 126 million#

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone hold the largest shares, and Mercedes-Benz still owns a full /8. Frankfurt is home to DE-CIX, one of the world’s busiest internet exchanges, which makes Germany a hosting hub well beyond its own address count.

6. South Korea: 112 million#

With about 2.2 addresses per person, South Korea is one of the best-supplied countries in Asia. That goes back to the early nationwide broadband rollouts by KT, SK Broadband and LG Uplus.

7. France: 82 million#

Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues Telecom hold most French space. France also leads the world in IPv6 use: in October 2026, about 87% of its users reached Google over IPv6.

8. Brazil: 79 million#

Brazil is the largest holder in Latin America. Alongside big operators such as Claro and Vivo, it has thousands of small regional providers, each with its own blocks.

9. Canada: 68 million#

Bell, Rogers and TELUS hold most of Canada’s space, which comes from ARIN, the same registry as the US.

10. Italy: 54 million#

Italy closes the top 10, with TIM as its largest holder. It is also one of the slowest major countries to adopt IPv6, with only about 18% of users on it.

IP addresses per person#

Totals favour big countries, so the ranking changes completely once you divide by population. Among countries and territories with more than 5 million people:

#	Country	IPv4 per person
1	Singapore	4.7
2	United States	4.7
3	Sweden	3.0
4	Norway	2.8
5	Netherlands	2.7
6	Switzerland	2.6
7	Finland	2.5
8	South Korea	2.2
9	Hong Kong	2.1
10	Denmark	2.0

The UK just misses the list with the same rounded 2.0. At the other end, China has 0.24 addresses per person, Indonesia 0.06, India 0.03 and Nigeria 0.01.

Keep two things in mind when you read these numbers:

• A high ratio often means a hub, not heavy home use. Singapore and the Netherlands host data centers and cloud regions that serve whole continents. The extreme case is the Seychelles, with about 9 million addresses for roughly 123,000 people, or 73 per resident. Most of that space is registered to a single company and used on other continents.
• A low ratio doesn’t mean people are offline. Providers in India, China and Nigeria put many users behind one shared address. India also reaches Google over IPv6 for about 68% of users, so it needs far fewer IPv4 addresses.

The per-person figures combine our 20 October 2026 count with the World Bank’s 2025 population estimates.

IPv6: who leads#

IPv6 has so many addresses (2¹²⁸) that counting them one by one says little. Two other measures matter more: who holds the most IPv6 space, and who actually uses it.

Who holds the most IPv6 space#

By share of all registered IPv6 space, from the same 20 October 2026 count:

#	Country	Share of IPv6 space
1	United States	29.7%
2	China	13.8%
3	Singapore	6.9%
4	Germany	4.9%
5	United Kingdom	4.2%

The gap is much smaller than in IPv4. The US holds 2.2 times China’s IPv6 space, against 4.7 times its IPv4.

Who uses IPv6 the most#

On 28 March 2026, more than half of Google’s users (50.1%) reached it over IPv6 for the first time. The share still moves from day to day around that line: it peaked at 51.7% on 3 October and stood at 48.9% on 18 October.

Adoption varies widely by country. Google’s figures for 18 October 2026:

• Leaders: France about 87%, Germany about 76%, Saudi Arabia about 69% and India about 68%.
• Middle: Japan about 58%, Brazil about 57%, the US about 55% and the UK about 54%.
• Laggards: Italy about 18%, Spain about 12% and Egypt about 5%.

Google’s figure for China says little, because its services are unavailable to most users there. Need explains much of the pattern: countries with few IPv4 addresses per person, like India, or with newer mobile networks adopted IPv6 fastest. France and Germany show that national policy and large providers can drive it too.

Who owns the most IP addresses#

Country totals hide how concentrated ownership is. In most countries a handful of large providers hold most of the space, and a few organizations worldwide hold more than entire nations.

According to registry records, these organizations hold at least one full /8 block (16.8 million addresses each):

Holder	Full /8 blocks	Approx. addresses
US Department of Defense	13	218 million
Amazon	1 (3.0.0.0/8), plus many smaller blocks	178 million in total
AT&T	1 (12.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
Apple	1 (17.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
Ford Motor Company	1 (19.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
UK Ministry of Defence	1 (25.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
Cogent Communications	1 (38.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
Mercedes-Benz Group	1 (53.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million
Comcast	1 (73.0.0.0/8)	16.8 million

To put that in perspective, the US Department of Defense holds more IPv4 addresses than all of Japan, and Amazon alone has more than the UK or Germany. Amazon got there mostly by buying: its /8 came from General Electric, and it bought part of the 44.0.0.0/8 block from a radio amateurs’ organization in 2019. As cloud and hosting companies keep purchasing blocks, more of the world’s IPv4 space ends up in data centers rather than with home internet providers.

Why this matters for proxies#

The address map decides what proxies cost and how well they work in each country.

• More addresses mean more choice. Countries with large, varied pools, such as the US, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, offer many providers and many separate subnets. Proxies there are cheaper and harder for websites to refuse as a group, while in countries with few addresses per person proxy pools are small and pricier.
• Shared addresses carry shared reputations. Where providers put hundreds of customers behind one address, a single neighbour’s behaviour can bring CAPTCHAs or bans for everyone on it. That’s the main reason dedicated addresses matter for account work.
• The registry country isn’t always the location websites see. Registry records show where the holder is registered, not where the addresses are used, so a block registered to a US company can serve users in Frankfurt or Singapore. Websites rely on geolocation databases instead, and those sometimes lag behind, so check a proxy’s IP in two or three lookup services before relying on its country. Our guide to the best countries to host proxy servers explains how that location affects speed and law.
• Scarcity sets the price floor. With IPv4 at about $14 to $23 per address to buy, or $0.35 to $0.45 per address per month to lease, every IPv4 proxy carries a real cost. IPv6 proxies are far cheaper, but many websites still don’t support IPv6 or treat whole IPv6 ranges with suspicion.

We run our proxies on our own IPv4 ranges rather than leased or resold space, and you can see which countries are available on our proxy locations page.