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How-to

How to Change Your IP Address

Last updated July 4, 2026

To change your public IP, unplug your router for at least five minutes (dynamic IPs often rotate), or ask your ISP for a new one. A VPN, proxy, or Tor gives you a different visible IP instantly. Your local IP changes with a DHCP renewal or a manual assignment.

Change your public IP address

Your public IP is assigned by your ISP to your router, so every method here works at the connection level, not on a single device. In rough order of effort:

  1. Unplug your router for 5+ minutes. Home connections usually get a dynamic IP through a DHCP lease. Staying offline long enough for the lease to lapse (sometimes minutes, sometimes overnight) often earns a new address when you reconnect. This only works with dynamic IPs; see static vs dynamic IP to tell which you have.
  2. On mobile data, toggle airplane mode. Turn airplane mode on for a few seconds, then off. Carrier networks reassign addresses aggressively (most customers sit behind carrier-grade NAT), so reconnecting usually rotates the IP that websites see.
  3. Ask your ISP. Support can often release your current lease and issue a new address on the spot, and most ISPs sell a static IP if what you actually want is an address that never changes.
  4. Move networks. The IP belongs to the connection, so switching from home Wi-Fi to mobile data, an office, or a coffee shop gives you a different public IP immediately.

One honest caveat: some ISPs pin the assigned IP to your modem or router's MAC address, so no amount of waiting changes it. If your router supports MAC cloning (changing the MAC it presents to the ISP), setting a new one and reconnecting will often force a fresh address. Check your router's WAN settings.

Get a different visible IP without changing yours

Often you don't need a new IP: you need websites to see a different one. That is what a VPN (all traffic, easiest), a proxy (one app or browser), or Tor (strongest anonymity, slowest) does: your connection exits through another machine, and its address appears instead of yours. The trade-offs are compared in VPN vs proxy vs Tor, and the step-by-step setup lives in how to hide your IP address.

Whichever you pick, verify it worked: our home page should show the new address, and the WebRTC leak test confirms your browser isn't quietly revealing the real one.

Change your local IP address

Your local IP (usually 192.168.x.x) is handed out by your own router, so it changes with a DHCP renewal on the device:

  • Windows: run ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew in Command Prompt (details in the Windows guide).
  • Mac: System Settings → Network → Details → TCP/IP → Renew DHCP Lease (see the Mac guide).
  • iPhone / iPad: tap Renew Lease on the network's ⓘ screen (see the iPhone and iPad guides).
  • Android: forget the Wi-Fi network and rejoin it (see the Android guide).
  • Linux: sudo dhclient -r && sudo dhclient, or reconnect with nmcli (see the Linux guide).

For a local IP that never moves, assign it in the router instead: a DHCP reservation (or static lease) ties a fixed address to your device, which is exactly what you want for printers, servers and port forwarding.

Generally, yes: restarting a router, requesting a new address from your ISP, or using a VPN is legal in most countries and entirely ordinary. What remains illegal is what you do with it: evading a court order, committing fraud, or dodging bans you agreed not to evade doesn't become lawful because the address changed.

Troubleshooting

  • The IP didn't change after a restart: your DHCP lease was probably still fresh, so the ISP handed the same address back. Leave the router unplugged much longer (try overnight), or, if the ISP pins the IP to your hardware, change the router's cloned MAC address and reconnect.
  • You're behind CGNAT: if your public IP is shared with other customers (common on mobile and some fiber ISPs), the address you see on our home page belongs to the carrier's gateway, and rotating it is entirely up to the carrier. Reconnecting may shuffle you to a different shared address, but you cannot hold or choose one. A VPN is the practical way to control what websites see.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often does my IP address change on its own?
It depends on your ISP. Most home connections use dynamic IPs that can change after a router restart, an outage, or a lease expiry, anywhere from days to months apart. Some ISPs keep the same address for years, and static IPs never change by design.
Does restarting the router always change my IP address?
No. If you reconnect before your DHCP lease expires, the ISP usually hands back the same address, and some ISPs tie the IP to your modem's MAC address, so it survives any restart. Leaving the router unplugged longer, or changing the router's MAC, improves the odds.
Can I choose my own public IP address?
Not freely. Public IPs are allocated by your ISP from its own ranges. The closest options are paying your ISP for a static IP, or using a VPN provider that offers dedicated IPs and picking the server location you want.
Does a VPN change my IP address?
It changes the address websites see, which is what matters for most purposes: your traffic exits through the VPN server, so its IP appears instead of yours. Your real public IP still exists underneath and is unchanged. The VPN masks it rather than replacing it.
Will changing my IP address stop tracking?
Only partly. A new IP resets IP-based blocks and rough geolocation, but most tracking relies on cookies, logins, and browser fingerprinting, which follow you across IP changes. Treat an IP change as one layer, not a cloak.