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ip-api

Know where a request comes from before you trust it.

Open ip-api.io See a real response

Paid plans from €10 a month. Cancel anytime.

  1. 01Location
  2. 02Network
  3. 03Risk

Overview

ip-api is an IP geolocation and risk API. It answers a plain question about an address: where is it, whose network is it on, and is there anything suspicious about it? One GET request returns country, city, coordinates, timezone, ISP and ASN, together with flags for VPNs, proxies, Tor exit nodes, data centres and known threats.

The same key also validates email addresses, from a quick syntax and disposable-provider check to a live SMTP reachability test. It is built for sign-up forms, checkout flows, analytics and anywhere else a product needs to decide how much to trust a visitor without asking them to prove it.

How it works

RequestOne GET, any language
$ curl "https://ip-api.io/api/v1/ip/78.55.53.58?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"
ResponseJSON, trimmed
{
  "ip": "78.55.53.58",
  "isp": "Deutsche Telekom AG",
  "asn": "AS3320",
  "suspicious_factors": {
    "is_proxy": false,
    "is_tor_node": false,
    "is_vpn": false,
    "is_threat": false
  },
  "location": {
    "country": "Germany",
    "country_code": "DE",
    "city": "Berlin",
    "latitude": 52.5694,
    "longitude": 13.3753,
    "timezone": "Europe/Berlin"
  }
}

The full response also includes the postcode, local time, and flags for spam sources, crawlers and data centres. Field reference: API documentation.

  • IP geolocation

    Country, city, postcode, coordinates, timezone and local time for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

  • Network data

    The ISP and autonomous system (ASN) behind an address, plus a separate ASN lookup.

  • Anonymity signals

    Separate flags for VPNs, proxies, Tor exit nodes and data-centre traffic.

  • Threat signals

    Flags for spam sources, crawlers and known threats, checked against regularly refreshed lists.

  • Email validation

    Syntax, disposable providers, and real-time SMTP checks, singly or in batches.

  • Bulk and tooling

    Up to 100 addresses per bulk request, official SDKs in eight languages, and a hosted MCP server for AI agents.

Limits worth knowing

  • IP geolocation is an estimate. The country is usually right; the city can be wrong, especially on mobile networks.
  • A clean result is not a guarantee. New VPN and proxy exits appear before any list includes them.
  • Some mail servers refuse to say whether a mailbox exists. Those addresses come back inconclusive rather than guessed.
  • The Java SDK is written but not yet published to Maven Central.

Story

The first commit landed on 12 February 2022. Within days, ip-api could answer the one question it was built for: where is this address?

That answer turned out to be only half of what people needed. Knowing that a visitor is in Berlin matters less than knowing whether the visitor is really in Berlin, or behind a VPN that happens to exit there. So the work moved towards the signals around a location: Tor exit nodes, proxies, VPN ranges, data centres, threat lists. Each of those signals is kept current, so an answer reflects today's internet rather than last year's.

Email validation followed for a similar reason. A sign-up form sees an IP address and an email address at the same moment, and both say something about whether the person is real.

The decision that shaped everything else was to keep it to one request and one JSON response. A single curl call is enough to start; the SDKs and the dashboard are there for people who want them.

Pricing

  • Small

    €10 a month

    100,000 IP lookups and 10,000 advanced email validations a month

  • Medium

    €20 a month

    300,000 IP lookups and 25,000 advanced email validations a month

  • Large

    €49 a month

    1,000,000 IP lookups and 100,000 advanced email validations a month

Open ip-api.io

Billed monthly in euros. Cancel anytime.