Why the World’s IPv4 Addresses Are Exhausted and What It Means for You

RIPE NCC, the regional internet registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, confirmed that all 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses have now been allocated, meaning no further IPv4 blocks can be assigned to ISPs or large network operators.

In an email sent at 15:35 UTC+1 on 25 November 2019 (22:35 Beijing time), RIPE NCC announced the final allocation from its available pool, marking the global exhaustion of IPv4 address space.

Although the pool is empty, RIPE NCC will continue to reclaim IPv4 addresses from organizations that cease operations or reduce demand, but the reclaimed supply is far too small to meet ongoing needs. Future allocations will be limited to entities that have never received IPv4 addresses, and the organization urges large‑scale deployment of IPv6.

IPv4 top‑level address space was already exhausted in 2012 when the five regional internet registries (RIRs) had allocated all their blocks. The last allocations occurred as follows: APNIC on 15 April 2011, LACNIC on 10 June 2014, ARIN on 24 September 2015, and Europe has now completed its distribution.

Despite IPv4 depletion, many countries have been transitioning to IPv6. For example, China’s Academy of Information and Communications Technology reported that as of May this year, there were 311 million active IPv6 users in the country.