IPv4 Leasing Market: Pricing, Quality & Market Trends

IPv4 prices are shifting, but the cheapest block may not be the best deal. As the IPv4 leasing market matures, reputation, routing and usability are becoming just as important as price. See what’s changing in IPv4 leasing.


Key Takeaways

• 33.4 million IPv4 addresses appeared in registered RIR transfers during 2025, up from 30.2 million in 2024.
• Those addresses moved through 5,619 registered transfer transactions, down from 6,184 in 2024, meaning fewer transactions moved more address space.
• Around 342 million IPv4 addresses have appeared in RIR transfer records since 2012, equal to roughly 9.3% of all delegated IPv4 space.
• Purchase-market prices remain well below previous peaks. One August 2026 marketplace dataset recorded an average of $20.30 per IPv4 address.
• Public leasing prices vary significantly by prefix size, region, block quality and contract structure, so there is no reliable single “global IPv4 lease rate.”
• IPv4 demand has not disappeared. Instead, buyers are placing more emphasis on reputation, geolocation, routing support and deployment readiness.
• IPv6 adoption continues to reduce long-term pressure on IPv4, but it has not removed the need for IPv4 across much of today’s internet infrastructure.

IPv4 Is Still Scarce, but Scarcity Is No Longer the Whole Story

IPv4 exhaustion remains real.

IANA’s central pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses was exhausted in 2011, and the Regional Internet Registries have since been working through their remaining inventories under increasingly restrictive allocation policies.

By the end of 2025, APNIC estimated that only about 3.9 million IPv4 addresses remained in the RIR available pools, with most of that inventory concentrated in APNIC and AFRINIC. These remaining addresses are subject to registry policies and should not be interpreted as a freely available global supply.

For businesses that need more IPv4 capacity, the practical market is therefore increasingly based on address space that has already been allocated.

That space can be sold, transferred, leased, subdivided and redeployed.

And there is still a lot of movement.

33.4 Million IPv4 Addresses Were Transferred in 2025

APNIC’s analysis of RIR transfer records shows that 33.4 million IPv4 addresses were transferred during 2025, compared with 30.2 million in 2024.

That represents an increase of approximately 10.6% in transferred address volume.

But the number of transactions moved in the opposite direction. Registered transfer transactions declined from 6,184 in 2024 to 5,619 in 2025.

In simple terms, fewer transactions moved a larger amount of address space.

This matters for the state of IPv4 leasing because it shows that exhaustion has not frozen the market. Existing IPv4 resources continue to be redistributed between organizations.

Since 2012, approximately 342 million IPv4 addresses have appeared in RIR transfer logs, equivalent to around 9.3% of the 3.7 billion delegated IPv4 addresses.

APNIC cautions that some blocks may have been transferred more than once, so that figure should not be interpreted as 342 million unique addresses.

What it does show is how important the secondary IPv4 market has become.

IPv4 Purchase Prices Have Corrected Sharply

The clearest pricing data comes from the IPv4 transfer and purchase market, rather than leasing.

That distinction is important.

Lease agreements are often private, with terms that depend on block size, duration, region, reputation, routing requirements and the intended use of the addresses. Purchase transactions are somewhat easier to track through marketplaces and RIR transfer records.

The correction in that purchase market has been substantial.

APNIC’s analysis found that purchase prices declined significantly during 2025. Based on IPv4.Global transaction data, the mean price was around $22 per address during the 40 days leading up to January 10, 2026, while individual transactions varied considerably depending on block characteristics.

APNIC concluded that the scarcity premium that pushed prices dramatically higher between 2020 and 2022 had weakened as the balance between supply and demand changed.

That correction continued to shape the market during 2026.

What the Latest August 2026 Data Shows

The latest available marketplace data adds another piece to the picture.

IPv4Center’s August 2026 market report, published September 1, recorded 105 transactions covering 428,288 IPv4 addresses.

Its average transaction price was $20.30 per address, with a median of $19.29.

That was approximately 21% below the same marketplace’s August 2025 average, although the number of transactions was 25% higher year over year.

These numbers should not be treated as the price of every IPv4 address on the global market. They represent transactions captured by that specific dataset.

But they reinforce a broader trend: IPv4 purchasing is happening at substantially lower valuations than during the market’s previous peaks.

At the same time, the market is not moving in a straight line.

IPv4 Prices Are Not Simply Falling

This is where the 2026 market becomes more interesting.

IPv4.Global reported strengthening demand during June and July, with average pricing increasing across most block sizes in July. Larger blocks showed some of the strongest gains, while available inventory tightened.

Then another marketplace’s August dataset showed its average price moving lower again.

The difference illustrates an important point:

There is no single IPv4 market price.

Different marketplaces have different inventories, sellers, buyers, prefix sizes and regional mixes. A large legacy /16 can behave very differently from a clean /24. An ARIN block may not trade at the same valuation as an equivalent block from another RIR.

Rather than describing IPv4 prices as simply rising or falling, the better description is that the market has rebalanced after a major correction and is becoming increasingly segmented.

What Is Happening to IPv4 Lease Rates?

IPv4 Leasing needs even more caution.

Unlike an exchange-traded commodity, there is no central database containing every IPv4 lease contract.

Much of the market consists of private agreements between resource holders, infrastructure providers, brokers and lessees.

This makes statements such as “the global IPv4 lease rate is $0.40 per IP” misleading.

Published August 2026 marketplace data illustrates the variation. Indicative lease bands ranged from roughly $0.30 to $0.50 per IP per month, depending largely on prefix size, with smaller blocks carrying higher per-address pricing than larger blocks.

Those figures are useful as a market signal, not as a universal benchmark.

Real leasing costs can change based on the length of the commitment, RIR region, routing requirements, geolocation, reputation history, volume and additional operational services.

A company comparing IPv4 lease offers should therefore look beyond the headline cost per address.

Demand Has Not Disappeared — It Has Become More Selective

Lower market valuations do not mean businesses have stopped needing IPv4.

Hosting companies, ISPs, cloud infrastructure providers, proxy networks, VPN services, cybersecurity platforms, telecommunications companies and other internet businesses still rely on IPv4 connectivity.

The change is that buyers and lessees have more reason to ask questions before accepting a block.

During a strongly scarcity-driven market, obtaining enough addresses can become the priority.

In a more balanced market, organizations can focus more attention on whether those addresses are actually suitable for their infrastructure.

That changes the procurement conversation from:

“Can we get enough IPv4 addresses?”

to:

“Are these the right IPv4 addresses for our use case?”

And that is where IPv4 quality becomes increasingly important.

“The conversations we have with businesses have changed. Price still matters, but teams are asking much more about reputation,geolocation, routing and how quickly a block can be deployed. They want IPv4 space they can actually use, not simply inventory that is available.” — Sabina Uta, Sales Director, PubConcierge

IPv4 Reputation Is Part of the Real Cost

Two IPv4 blocks of the same size are not necessarily equally valuable.

An address range can be properly registered and fully routable while still carrying history from previous users.

That history might include spam activity, abuse reports, outdated geolocation records, poor reputation on certain platforms or previous routing issues.

The operational impact varies by use case, but for businesses that depend on address reputation, these problems can offset the savings of choosing a cheaper range.

A low-cost block that requires repeated remediation, geolocation corrections, reputation work or replacements may ultimately be more expensive than a better-quality range with a slightly higher lease rate.

This is why the market increasingly needs to distinguish between available IPv4 and usable IPv4.

The original leasing assessment was right to place reputation, RPKI/ROA support, geolocation and routing quality at the center of the evaluation process.

What Makes a Quality IPv4 Block?

For businesses leasing IPv4, quality is not one metric.

Reputation history matters because previous use can affect how an address range is treated after deployment. Relevant blocklists and abuse databases can help identify obvious issues, but no single tool provides a complete reputation picture.

Geolocation accuracy is another consideration. IP databases do not always agree, particularly when a block has recently moved between organizations or regions. APNIC itself notes that IP geolocation records are inherently approximate and that different providers may interpret location differently.

RPKI and ROA support matter for routing security. A Route Origin Authorization identifies which Autonomous System is permitted to originate a prefix, supporting Route Origin Validation.

IRR records may also be required so networks can build appropriate routing policies and filters.

Finally, businesses need to understand the operational process surrounding the addresses: who manages registry changes, whether an LOA can be provided, how routing authorization works, what happens if a reputation problem develops, and how quickly problematic space can be replaced.

Those details can have far more impact on a deployment than a few cents difference in monthly lease price.

The IPv4 Market Is Becoming More Fragmented

There is another structural change taking place.

Large historical allocations are increasingly being divided into smaller blocks as they move through the market.

APNIC identified 56,629 registered transfer entries from the beginning of 2012 through the beginning of 2026.

Of those, 14,831 involved address blocks smaller than the original allocation.

That means approximately 26% of registered transfers implicitly fragmented the original IPv4 allocation.

That fragmentation is not necessarily negative.

A business may need a /24 or /22 rather than an entire /16. Breaking larger holdings into smaller blocks allows IPv4 inventory to better match actual demand.

But it also means prefix size is becoming another important part of market valuation.

Smaller, deployment-ready blocks can behave differently from very large legacy allocations.

IPv4 Has Become a Global Secondary Resource

The redistribution of IPv4 is also international.

In 2025, APNIC identified approximately 2,421 transfers that appeared to move IPv4 addresses between economies, involving roughly 18.7 million addresses.

Another 3,198 transfers involving approximately 14.3 million addresses occurred domestically.

This movement has practical consequences.

An IPv4 range may have been originally allocated in one region, previously routed somewhere else, and then deployed by a new organization in another market.

That makes registry history, geolocation, routing configuration and documentation important parts of due diligence.

IPv6 Is Changing IPv4 Demand, Not Eliminating It

No assessment of the IPv4 market is complete without IPv6.

Google’s measurements crossed 50% IPv6 usage for the first time on March 28, 2026, an important milestone in the transition.

But that figure needs context.

Google measures the percentage of its users who can access Google over IPv6. It does not mean that half of the internet has stopped using IPv4.

Much of today’s infrastructure remains dual-stack.

Enterprise software, customer networks, APIs, applications, older hardware and other internet services can still require IPv4 connectivity.

IPv6 nevertheless affects the economics of IPv4.

APNIC notes that when applications use IPv6 in dual-stack environments, IPv4 traffic and pressure on CGNAT address pools can fall. That can reduce the need for organizations to acquire additional IPv4 space.

So IPv6 is gradually reducing scarcity pressure.

It is not making IPv4 irrelevant overnight.

Leasing vs. Buying IPv4 in 2026

Lower purchase prices make the lease-versus-buy decision more interesting.

When purchase prices were near historical highs, leasing allowed companies to obtain capacity without committing significant capital to an expensive asset.

Today’s lower purchase valuations can make ownership more attractive for organizations that have predictable long-term requirements.

Leasing still offers something ownership does not: flexibility.

It can make sense when capacity requirements may change, when a business wants to scale quickly, when address space is required for a defined project, or when an organization wants to test a range before committing to a longer-term infrastructure decision.

Buying becomes more attractive when requirements are stable, the address space is expected to remain in use for many years, and the organization wants direct control of the resource.

A hybrid strategy can also work: lease during periods of expansion or uncertainty, then consider purchasing once long-term demand becomes predictable.

That distinction was already one of the strongest elements of the initial article.

The important point is that today’s lower purchase valuations mean businesses should recalculate the economics rather than relying on assumptions from the peak IPv4 market.

What Comes Next for IPv4 Leasing?

The next phase of the IPv4 market is unlikely to be defined by one number.

IPv4 remains finite, but available inventory is moving.

Purchase prices remain substantially below their earlier peaks, yet summer 2026 data has also shown periods of tightening supply and stronger buyer competition.

Lease rates remain highly dependent on block characteristics and contract terms.

IPv6 continues to reduce some demand pressure, but IPv4 remains necessary across a large portion of real-world internet infrastructure.

Taken together, these trends point toward a more segmented market.

Commodity IPv4 space will compete more heavily on price.

Blocks with stronger reputation history, appropriate geolocation, useful prefix sizes, routing readiness and reliable documentation may be evaluated differently.

And providers will increasingly compete not only on how many IPv4 addresses they can offer, but on how easy those addresses are to deploy and manage.

The State of IPv4 Leasing Is About Quality as Much as Price

The biggest story in IPv4 leasing in 2026 is not that IPv4 suddenly became cheap.

It is that the market has become more rational.

The scarcity premium has weakened. Existing address space continues to circulate. Purchase prices have corrected. IPv6 adoption is progressing.

But IPv4 remains an essential infrastructure resource for many businesses.

That gives organizations more room to evaluate what they are actually getting.

Instead of selecting IPv4 space based only on the lowest price per address, businesses can evaluate reputation, routing, geolocation, documentation, block size, support and contract flexibility.

In today’s market, the best IPv4 deal may not be the cheapest block.

It may be the block that works properly from the moment it is deployed.

The market correction is not a reason to cut corners on quality. It is a reason to get quality space at a better price than was possible twelve months ago.

For organizations ready to act on the current rate environment, PubConcierge offers IPv4 leasing options focused on the block quality standards that matter most in today’s selective market.

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Frequently Asked Questions About the IPv4 Market

What is happening in the IPv4 Leasing market?

The IPv4 market is becoming more mature and segmented. While IPv4 remains scarce, address space continues to move through transfers, sales, and leasing agreements. Pricing has corrected from previous peaks, but demand remains strong for IPv4 blocks with good reputation, accurate geolocation, reliable routing, and clear documentation.

Is IPv4 still in demand?

Yes. IPv4 remains essential for many hosting providers, ISPs, proxy networks, VPN services, cloud platforms, cybersecurity companies, and other internet businesses. IPv6 adoption is growing, but much of today’s infrastructure still relies on IPv4 or dual-stack connectivity.

Are IPv4 prices going down?

IPv4 purchase prices have declined from previous market highs, but the market does not move in a straight line. Prices can vary significantly depending on prefix size, RIR region, supply, demand, reputation, and marketplace conditions.

What affects IPv4 market prices?

IPv4 pricing is influenced by block size, RIR region, reputation history, geolocation, routing readiness, documentation, current inventory, buyer demand, and whether the addresses are being purchased or leased.

Why is IPv4 quality becoming more important?

As buyers gain more choice, simply finding available IPv4 space is no longer enough. Businesses increasingly evaluate whether a block has a suitable reputation, accurate geolocation, reliable routing, proper registry documentation, and the operational support required for deployment.

Is there a global IPv4 leasing price?

No. There is no single global IPv4 lease rate because most leasing agreements are private. Pricing depends on factors such as prefix size, region, contract duration, IP quality, routing requirements, geolocation, and additional services.

Is IPv6 reducing demand for IPv4?

IPv6 adoption is gradually reducing some pressure on IPv4, especially in dual-stack environments. However, IPv4 is still widely required across enterprise networks, applications, APIs, customer infrastructure, and other internet services.

What is the future of the IPv4 market?

The IPv4 market is likely to become increasingly segmented. Commodity address space may compete more heavily on price, while blocks with stronger reputation, useful prefix sizes, accurate geolocation, routing readiness, and reliable documentation may continue to command greater operational value.

Market data reflects publicly available RIR records and marketplace reports. Purchase and lease prices vary by transaction, prefix size, RIR region, block quality, contract terms and market conditions and should not be treated as guaranteed pricing.

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