Home › Guides › IPv4 Address Transfers, 2012–2026
✓ checked 11 October 2026 · sources: transfer logs published by RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC (our aggregates only) · method · caveats · download the data
The five regional internet registries recorded 8,081 IPv4 transfers in 2025 that moved 63.3 million addresses, the most in a year since 2018, when the logs show 69.2 million. The share of those addresses moving between registries rather than within one rose from 6.2% in 2020 to 39.8% in 2025.
Read this first. This page counts transfers of address blocks as recorded in the registries’ public logs. It does not show prices, who the ultimate users are, or whether a block is routed. A block that changes hands twice is counted twice. We publish only our own aggregate figures and name no organisations, because the registries’ logs carry organisation names and, in RIPE NCC’s case, a copyright notice.
transfers in 2025 8,081addresses moved in 2025 63.3Minter-registry share, 2025 39.8%
Headline numbers
- 2025: 8,081 transfers, 63.3 million addresses. 2024 was 48.4 million and the peak year in the logs is 2018 (69.2 million). In 2026 to 9 October the logs show 5,224 transfers and 49.0 million addresses.
- Since 2011 the logs record 69,852 transfers moving 661.3 million addresses, equal to about 39 /8 blocks. Because blocks can be transferred more than once, this overstates how many distinct addresses have moved.
- Most transfers are small, a few are huge. The median 2025 transfer is 1,024 addresses (a /22); the mean is 7,827. 30.1% of 2025 transfers are a single /24 or smaller, while the largest 1% (80 transfers) account for 39.6% of the addresses. The largest single 2025 transfer was 4.2 million addresses.
- Inter-registry transfers grew from 2.8 million addresses in 2020 to 25.2 million in 2025 (1,864 transfers). From 2020 to 9 October 2026 RIPE NCC was a net recipient, in resource transfers, of 32.9 million addresses and APNIC of 2.2 million, while ARIN was a net source of 23.0 million and LACNIC of 13.3 million.
- Mergers and acquisitions are logged separately and swing more. They covered 23.8 million addresses in 2023, 119.5 million in 2024 and 93.6 million in 2025 (2,294 records in 2025).
Addresses transferred per year
| Year | Resource transfers | Addresses | Between registries (share of addresses) | M&A records | M&A addresses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 128 | 6.7M | 0.1% | 0 | 0.0M |
| 2013 | 297 | 9.7M | 7.8% | 0 | 0.0M |
| 2014 | 1,242 | 19.8M | 10.7% | 0 | 0.0M |
| 2015 | 3,263 | 60.4M | 17.1% | 322 | 5.9M |
| 2016 | 3,733 | 36.3M | 18.1% | 1,031 | 99.8M |
| 2017 | 4,298 | 66.8M | 6.6% | 2,056 | 60.0M |
| 2018 | 4,669 | 69.2M | 24.2% | 4,231 | 228.4M |
| 2019 | 4,890 | 43.7M | 9.8% | 2,717 | 40.5M |
| 2020 | 5,850 | 45.8M | 6.2% | 2,370 | 44.2M |
| 2021 | 7,576 | 39.8M | 9.3% | 3,542 | 60.3M |
| 2022 | 5,513 | 53.2M | 23.0% | 3,561 | 64.7M |
| 2023 | 6,976 | 45.6M | 25.6% | 3,249 | 23.8M |
| 2024 | 7,993 | 48.4M | 31.5% | 3,220 | 119.5M |
| 2025 | 8,081 | 63.3M | 39.8% | 2,294 | 93.6M |
| 2026 (to 9 Oct) | 5,224 | 49.0M | 32.7% | 2,408 | 30.6M |
Why transfers exist
ARIN describes transfers as releases of unused address space to a specified recipient. Its rules set “The minimum transfer size is a /24” (256 addresses) for transfers between organisations. The registries’ logs make these moves public, but not the prices paid. For how many residential IPs proxy providers advertise against the addresses a country holds, see Proxy IP Claims vs the IPv4 Registry, and for the larger picture, The Home-Internet Supply Chain and Residential IP Supply by Country.
Method
Data. The transfers_latest.json files in the NRO transfer-log format from RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC, downloaded 11 October 2026 (logs run to 9–11 October). We read the IPv4 address ranges in each record’s transfer_set and count addresses as end minus start plus one.
Deduplication. Inter-registry transfers appear in both registries’ logs. We treat two records as the same transfer if date, type, source registry, recipient registry and address ranges match. 104,922 usable IPv4 records (one more, with a missing address range, was excluded) became 100,853 after dropping 4,069 duplicates.
Types. “Resource transfer” and “merger or acquisition” are the log’s own labels; we report them separately. A transfer is “inter-registry” when the source and recipient registries differ. Years are taken from the transfer date in the log (UTC date prefix).
Verification. A separate script re-reads the five files with its own parser and deduplication, recomputes every figure and checks the quote against the saved ARIN page.
Caveats
- Transfers recorded are not all transfers: some are never logged or are logged under later dates, and registries began logging in different years (ARIN in 2009 with few records before 2011, APNIC in 2010, RIPE NCC in 2012, LACNIC in 2016, AFRINIC in 2018).
- Counts of addresses double-count blocks that move more than once and include transfers between related organisations.
- Different registries record dates differently and in different time zones.
- 2026 covers January to early October only.
- The logs give no prices or reasons. We don’t estimate market value.
Download the data
- IPv4 transfers by year (CSV): transfers, addresses, median size and inter-registry share by year and type.
- Inter-registry transfers by year and direction (CSV).
Cite as: ProxyPicker, “IPv4 Address Transfers, 2012–2026”, 11 October 2026, https://proxypicker.com/ipv4-transfers/. Data: RIR transfer logs; figures are ProxyPicker aggregates.
Related: Proxy IP Claims vs the IPv4 Registry · The Home-Internet Supply Chain · Residential IP Supply by Country.
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