Why is my IP location wrong?

The location shown for your IP address is an estimate. Your address doesn't contain a location at all. Websites look it up in a database, and those databases are often off by a city, sometimes by a country.

How websites guess your location

Geolocation companies link blocks of IP addresses to places, using information from internet registries, internet providers, and their own measurements. The country is usually right, the city is often a guess, and for some addresses the database only knows the country. When that happens, some databases show a default point near the middle of the country, which is why people sometimes appear to be somewhere they've never been.

Different websites use different databases, so two sites can show two different cities for the same address. This site uses the location data provided by Cloudflare, the network it runs on.

Common reasons it's wrong

• A VPN, proxy, or privacy relay is on. Your traffic leaves from its server, so websites see that server's location. Apple's iCloud Private Relay works in a similar way, though it keeps you in roughly the right region.
• You're on mobile data. Carriers send traffic through a few regional gateways, so a phone can appear hundreds of kilometers away.
• Your provider moved its addresses from one region to another, and the databases haven't caught up yet.
• Satellite or rural internet often appears at the provider's ground station or head office.
• Work and school networks may send all traffic out through one central office.

How to fix it

1. Turn off any VPN, proxy, or private relay and reload the page. If the location changes, that was the cause. Our VPN test shows what websites can see.
2. Restart your router. Many providers hand out a new address when you reconnect, and the new one may be mapped correctly. See static vs dynamic IP addresses.
3. Ask for a correction. The large geolocation companies accept correction requests. MaxMind, one of the most widely used, has a correction request page. Approved corrections usually take effect within about a week, but they aren't guaranteed, and other databases update on their own schedule.
4. Contact your internet provider if your address shows the wrong country. Providers can submit corrections for their whole address range, which works better than one-off requests.
5. For one specific website, such as a store, a streaming service, or a search engine, check its settings. Many let you choose your location or use your device's location instead of your IP address.

When it matters

A wrong location can change which shows a streaming service offers, which prices or currency a store shows, and which local results you get. Banks sometimes flag a login from an unexpected country as suspicious. If a bank or payment service blocks you, contact them directly, and don't use a VPN to get around a security check.

See what websites see right now on our IP address check.