What Is a Proxy IP Address?

An IP address is the number that identifies a connection on the internet, such as 203.0.113.7; every reply a website sends goes back to it. When you use a proxy, the website receives the request from the proxy, so the proxy's IP is the one it answers, logs and judges. That is the proxy IP address.

Without a proxy:  you (your IP) ──────────────▶ website sees your IP
With a proxy:     you (your IP) ──▶ proxy (proxy IP) ──▶ website sees the proxy IP

With a proxy provider there are usually two addresses, and it helps to keep them apart:

• The address you connect to: the proxy's host name or IP and port, such as gate.proxyfield.io:7000. You enter it in your browser or script. More in proxy server address.
• The exit IP the website sees: the IP the request finally leaves from. With a simple proxy, it is the same server. With a rotating proxy gateway, you always connect to one gateway, and it sends each request out through an IP from its pool.

When people ask "what is my proxy IP", they usually mean the second one: the IP the site sees.

• Location. Geolocation is not GPS. MaxMind's own accuracy page says its data "is never precise enough to identify or locate a specific household" (MaxMind, geolocation accuracy). Behind a proxy, the location a site reads is the proxy's.
• ISP and ASN. Every IP belongs to an autonomous system (AS): the network of an ISP, a mobile carrier or a hosting company, with a number and a name, registered with a regional registry such as ARIN (ARIN, ASN guide). The ASN is how a site tells a home connection from a server: behind a proxy it sees the proxy's network, not your ISP.
• Type. MaxMind's Anonymous IP database, for example, has fields for hosting providers, public proxies, VPNs, Tor exit nodes and suspected residential proxies (MaxMind developer docs).
• Reverse DNS. Hosting and ISP host names often say what kind of connection the IP is, such as a server, a business line or a home connection.

These signals decide whether the site serves the page, shows a challenge or blocks the request, which is why the type of proxy IP matters as much as having one. More on how sites combine them in can websites detect proxies.

Not from the connection: the connection comes from the proxy's IP. But a proxy can write your IP into the request it forwards, and then the site reads both. Three headers do this (MDN, proxy servers and tunneling):

That gives the three classic levels:

• Transparent proxy: sends your IP in X-Forwarded-For or Forwarded, so the site sees both IPs. Corporate and caching proxies often work this way. See transparent proxy.
• Anonymous proxy: hides your IP but announces itself, for example with Via. See anonymous proxy.
• Elite proxy: adds none of these headers, so the site sees only the proxy IP. See elite proxy.

Over HTTPS, the proxy only tunnels the encrypted connection (the CONNECT method) and cannot add headers to it. ProxyField's gateway adds no Via, X-Forwarded-For or Forwarded header, sends HTTPS through a CONNECT tunnel without decrypting it, and removes your Proxy-Authorization header before the request goes to the site. Headers your own client sends pass through unchanged, so don't set X-Forwarded-For yourself. Your browser can still leak your IP outside the proxy, for example through WebRTC: see does a proxy hide your IP.

Ask an IP-echo service, once without the proxy and once through it. With ProxyField:

# your own IP
curl https://api.ipify.org

# the IP a website sees through the proxy (a US IP in New York)
curl -x gate.proxyfield.io:7000 -U "<login>-country-us-city-new_york:<password>" https://api.ipify.org

# the headers the website receives: look for X-Forwarded-For, Forwarded or Via
curl -x gate.proxyfield.io:7000 -U "<login>-country-us-city-new_york:<password>" https://httpbin.org/headers

The second command prints a residential IP, not yours. Run it twice with per-request rotation and you get two different IPs. The third prints the request headers as the site got them. Then look the exit IP up in any IP-lookup or whois service to see its country, ASN and network name, as a site would. In a browser, open any "what is my IP" page with the proxy on, or use our proxy checker: up to 100 proxies per check, and your list and results are not stored. Where to find the proxy's own host and port on your system is in how to find the proxy your system uses.

A proxy doesn't replace your IP on your device; it adds a second hop. Your device still has its own IP, and it is visible to the proxy.

Two more splits cut across the types:

• Rotating vs static. A rotating proxy gives you a new IP on every request or after a sticky session; a static proxy keeps one IP for weeks. See static vs rotating proxies.
• IPv4 vs IPv6. Most proxy IPs are IPv4, the format above. IPv6 addresses are longer, such as 2001:db8::1, and many sites handle them differently. ProxyField does not sell IPv6 proxies.

It depends on how you use them. With ProxyField's rotating residential and mobile proxies, you choose per request: a new IP on every request, or a sticky session that keeps one IP for 30 s to 36 h (20 minutes when you set a session without a time). A dedicated ISP or datacenter IP stays yours for a 30-day term, which you renew yourself.

When a rotating IP changes, the new one can come from the same network or a different one. Two IPs from the same ISP share an ASN; two IPs next to each other in one block, a subnet, may share a reputation if a site blocks the whole range, but sites often score each IP on its own, so one bad neighbor doesn't always spoil the block.

A website that gets no forwarding header from the proxy can trace a request only to the proxy IP. The proxy provider, though, knows which account used which IP at what time. ProxyField's abuse process, for example, starts by tracing a reported IP and time to the account that used it, and where the law requires it, illegal activity is reported to the competent authorities (trust center). A proxy hides your IP from websites; it doesn't put you beyond the provider's rules or the law.

Both are someone else's IP that a site sees instead of yours. A VPN IP covers the whole device, comes with encryption, and is usually one datacenter address that you share with other VPN users. A proxy IP covers one app, without encryption of its own, and with a proxy provider you can choose its type, location and rotation. The full comparison is in proxy vs VPN.

Need IPs in a specific country or city? ProxyField residential proxies: 412M+ IPs in 195+ countries, country, region and city targeting, a new IP per request or a sticky one for up to 36 h. Start with the Easy Trial: 1 GB for $2.95.

• MDN, Proxy servers and tunneling and X-Forwarded-For
• RFC 7239, Forwarded HTTP Extension (June 2014)
• MaxMind, Geolocation accuracy
• MaxMind, GeoIP Anonymous IP database
• ARIN, Autonomous System Numbers