What is my IPv6 address?

What is IPv6?

IPv6 is the current version of the Internet Protocol, designed to replace IPv4. Its addresses are 128 bits instead of 32, which raises the address space from about 4.3 billion to roughly 340 undecillion — a 39-digit number. The practical consequence is that address scarcity, and every workaround built to cope with it, stops being a problem.

How IPv6 addresses are written

An IPv6 address is eight groups of four hexadecimal digits separated by colons. Two shorthand rules keep them readable:

• Leading zeros in a group are dropped: 0db8 becomes db8.
• One run of consecutive all-zero groups collapses to ::, which may appear only once in an address.

So 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 is normally written 2001:db8::1.

How this IPv6 test works

A browser opens each connection over a single address family. Asking a normal dual-stack server "what is my address" therefore only reveals whichever family your browser happened to choose, and tells you nothing about the other — which is why many "IPv6 checkers" report false results.

This test instead requests a hostname published with an AAAA record only. There is no IPv4 route to it at all, so a successful response proves IPv6 works from your device, through your router, across your provider's network. When the request fails, IPGet reports that IPv6 is unavailable rather than guessing. And when the test hosts are not configured, it says the family was not tested instead of inventing a result.

Why IPv6 matters

Beyond address supply, IPv6 restores end-to-end connectivity. Every device can hold a globally routable address, so inbound connections work without port forwarding — which matters for self-hosted services, peer-to-peer applications and voice or video calling.

It also simplifies network operation: address autoconfiguration means devices can configure themselves from a router advertisement without DHCP, and the simplified header reduces per-packet work for routers.

What to do if you do not have IPv6

1. Check your router first. Many consumer routers support IPv6 but ship with it disabled; look for an IPv6 section in the WAN or internet settings.
2. Ask your internet provider whether IPv6 is offered on your plan and in your area. Support varies enormously by country and by provider.
3. Confirm your operating system has IPv6 enabled — it is on by default everywhere modern, but old troubleshooting advice sometimes leaves it switched off.

Not having IPv6 does not break anything today: the entire IPv4 internet remains reachable. You can confirm that side separately with the IPv4 checker, and inspect any address in detail with IP Lookup.

Why this can say "no IPv6" when your system shows an IPv6 address

Almost every modern operating system assigns itself IPv6 addresses on the local link whether or not the connection carries IPv6 to the internet. Running ipconfig or ip addr and seeing something beginning fe80: proves only that the network stack is switched on — that is a link-local address and it never leaves your own segment.

This test asks a different and more useful question: can a server on the public internet reach you over IPv6? It does that by attempting to load a resource from an IPv6-only endpoint. If that succeeds, your connection genuinely carries IPv6 end to end. If it fails, something in the chain — your provider, your router, or a setting on the device — is not carrying it, no matter what your local interface list says.

Reading an IPv6 address without counting

IPv6 addresses look worse than they are. They are eight groups of four hexadecimal digits, and two rules shorten them: leading zeros in a group are dropped, and one run of all-zero groups is replaced by a double colon. So 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001 is written 2001:db8::1. The double colon can appear only once, because otherwise there would be no way to know how many zeros each one stood for.

The prefix tells you the shape. A block beginning 2000::/3 is globally routable. fe80::/10 is link-local, the kind that appears whether or not you have real IPv6. fc00::/7 is the private-use range, the rough equivalent of 192.168. And ::1 is loopback — the whole of 127.0.0.0/8 compressed into three characters.

What dual-stack actually means for you

Most connections that have IPv6 also still have IPv4, and the browser chooses between them per connection using Happy Eyeballs: it starts both, and uses whichever answers first. This is why a broken IPv6 path often produces sluggishness rather than failure — the browser waits, gives up, and falls back.

It also means a site can see either address depending on the route it took. If you check your address here and elsewhere and get different families, nothing is wrong; you are dual-stacked and the two services resolved differently. The IPv4 checker tests the other half of the same connection, and IP Lookup will show you what each address reveals.