Europe Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses

On 25 November 2019, the RIPE NCC, the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, made its final /22 IPv4 allocation from the last remaining addresses in their available pool and have now run out of IPv4 addresses.

IPv4 run-out has long been anticipated and planned for by the RIPE community. 

Even though RIPE has run out, it will continue to recover IPv4 addresses in the future.  These will come from organizations that have gone out of business or are closed, or from networks that return addresses they no longer need.  These addresses will be allocated to members (Local Internet Registries or LIRs) according to their position on a new waiting list that is now active.

While RIPE therefore expects to be allocating IPv4 for some time, the organization emphasizes that these small amounts will not come close to the many millions of addresses that networks in Europe need today.  Only LIRs that have never received an IPv4 allocation from the RIPE NCC (of any size) may request addresses from the waiting list, and they are only eligible to receive a single /24 allocation.

LIRs that have submitted an IPv4 request can see their position on the waiting list in the LIR Portal.  A new graph has also been published that shows the number of requests on the waiting list and the number of days that the LIR at the front of the queue has been waiting.