RIPE NCC Introduces New IP Allocation Rules: What It Means for Your Network

When RIPE NCC changes how IP addresses are allocated, every hosting provider, ISP, and IT team in its service region feels it. IPs are the raw material of connectivity: without them, you cannot launch new VPS nodes, on-board colocation customers, or bring a new application cluster online. The latest RIPE NCC IP allocation rules continue a trend that has been building for years: IPv4 is effectively exhausted, prices are rising, and policies are tightening to ensure the remaining space is used fairly and efficiently while accelerating the move to IPv6. In this article, we’ll walk through what is changing, why it is happening now, and – most importantly – how you should adapt your capacity planning, budgeting, and network design. As the dchost.com team, we’ll also share how we handle these changes in our own infrastructure so that your hosting, VPS, dedicated server, and colocation services remain stable and predictable.

RIPE NCC and IP Allocation Rules in a Nutshell

RIPE NCC is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) responsible for managing IP address space and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia. It does not sell IP addresses; instead, it allocates them to members (LIRs – Local Internet Registries such as ISPs and hosting providers) under community‑approved policies.

These policies define:

• Who can receive address space (membership and eligibility)
• How much they can receive (allocation sizes and limits)
• Under what conditions they can use and transfer that space (justification, documentation, holding periods)
• How reclaimed space (returned or recovered IPs) is re‑distributed

Over the last decade, policies have been rewritten multiple times because IPv4 space is effectively depleted. RIPE NCC entered its “last /8” phase in 2012 and officially ran out of its regular IPv4 pool in 2019. Since then, new rules have focused on distributing very small IPv4 blocks as fairly as possible and pushing serious deployment of IPv6. If you want background on why addresses are so scarce and costly, our detailed explanation of IPv4 exhaustion and price surges is a good companion read.

Why RIPE NCC Is Updating IP Allocation Rules Now

The latest adjustments to RIPE NCC IP allocation rules are driven by three overlapping realities: technical scarcity, market pressure, and long‑term Internet health.

1. IPv4 scarcity is no longer theoretical. We are deep into the era where every public IPv4 address matters. Hosting providers and ISPs have to stretch each /24 or /22 across NAT, load balancers, and multiple services. RIPE NCC’s remaining IPv4 pool consists largely of reclaimed space, returned blocks, or addresses freed through mergers and policy enforcement, so policies must decide how to redistribute a resource that is essentially finite.

2. The IPv4 transfer market distorts incentives. As we’ve explored in our articles on IPv4 address prices reaching record highs, the secondary market can encourage hoarding and speculation rather than efficient use. Policy changes often aim to reduce pure speculation (for example, by enforcing holding periods before transfers) and prioritize networks that actually deploy services.

3. IPv6 deployment must accelerate. RIPE NCC cannot manufacture new IPv4 addresses, but it can influence how quickly IPv6 becomes the norm. Policy shifts are crafted to nudge LIRs and their downstream customers to dual‑stack deployments, IPv6‑ready applications, and eventually, IPv6‑first designs. If you want to see the global trend lines, our article on rising IPv6 adoption rates and what they mean for your infrastructure gives concrete numbers and timelines.

The Key Elements of the New RIPE NCC IP Allocation Rules

While the exact wording of RIPE policies is legal‑technical and evolves through community proposals, the most recent rules follow a clear pattern. Below are the main points you are likely to see in practice as a customer of a hosting provider like dchost.com.

1. Small, Last‑Resort IPv4 Allocations

RIPE NCC’s IPv4 allocation policy has been shaped by the “last /8” framework for years. The newer refinements keep the same spirit:

• New or existing LIRs can receive only a very small IPv4 allocation from the remaining pool, typically a /24 (256 addresses).
• This is meant as a minimum starting block so a network can offer basic services (DNS resolvers, NAT gateways, mail relays, etc.), not as a growth engine.
• Additional IPv4 requirements must be met via efficient use of existing holdings, the secondary transfer market, or through upstream providers that aggregate address space.

For you as a hosting or infrastructure customer, this means:

• New projects may not get “one public IP per VM” as a default assumption.
• More services will run behind reverse proxies, load balancers, and NAT to conserve IPv4.
• Public IPv4 addresses will increasingly be reserved for functions that truly require them (SSL frontends, VPN endpoints, public APIs, mail gateways).

2. Waiting Lists and Reclaimed Address Space

Because the “fresh” IPv4 pool is gone, RIPE NCC now deals largely in:

• Space returned voluntarily by organizations
• Space recovered through policy enforcement (e.g., non‑payment or non‑compliance)
• Address ranges corrected after mergers or registry clean‑ups

New policies typically define a waiting list mechanism for LIRs that request their last‑resort /24 but find the pool empty at that time. When space is reclaimed later, it is handed to the oldest entries on this list.

Operationally, this introduces uncertainty for smaller networks that do not already have IPv4 space. For hosting customers, the implication is simple: you should not base a new product launch on the assumption that fresh IPv4s will suddenly become available. Plan with what is realistically on the table today, not with hypothetical future allocations.

3. Stricter Justification and Documentation

RIPE NCC’s community has long required “need‑based” justification for new allocations and assignments. The newer rules generally strengthen this approach:

• LIRs must document usage plans more precisely when requesting or increasing address holdings.
• There is more focus on efficient use: unused or lightly used space can trigger questions or reclamation pressure.
• Assignments to customers (for example, entire /29–/24 ranges) may require clearer contractual and technical justification.

For you as a customer of dchost.com, this tends to show up as:

• More detailed questions when you request larger IPv4 ranges for dedicated servers or colocation racks.
• Encouragement to use shared IPs with SNI‑based HTTPS, HTTP proxies, and containerized workloads rather than one‑IP‑per‑site designs.
• Clearer AUPs (Acceptable Use Policies) around things like mail sending, to protect the reputation and continued usability of shared IP ranges.

4. Transfer Rules and Holding Periods

Because IPv4 can be bought and sold on the secondary market, policies have to distinguish between legitimate operational transfers and pure speculation. Recent RIPE NCC rule changes often involve:

• Minimum holding periods – address space allocated or transferred to an LIR must be held for a certain time before it can be transferred again.
• Merger and acquisition (M&A) clarity – rules on what happens to IP blocks when companies merge, split, or are acquired.
• Transparency requirements – RIPE Database entries must accurately reflect who is responsible for each block.

This has two main effects on hosting customers:

• IP space included with long‑term colocation or dedicated server contracts is less likely to “disappear” suddenly because your upstream’s provider sold it.
• On the flip side, rapid, speculative moves become harder, so you should not rely on being able to quickly flip large IPv4 blocks you obtained in the past.

If you are interested in how another region handles similar issues, our article on ARIN IP allocation changes and their operational effects offers a useful comparison.

5. Stronger Emphasis on IPv6 in Policy and Practice

RIPE’s policy framework has always supported IPv6, but the tone has shifted from “:nice to have” to “:this is where growth must happen.” The new allocation rules work alongside IPv6‑friendly policies that:

• Make it easy for LIRs to request generous IPv6 allocations (for example, a /32 or larger, depending on needs).
• Encourage downstream assignments of /48s or /56s per site or customer, enabling rich subnetting without address conservation headaches.
• Align with training and outreach programmes such as RIPE NCC IPv6 training initiatives and what they mean for your network.

From our perspective at dchost.com, this is the real solution. While we continue to manage IPv4 carefully, all new platform design is done with dual‑stack (IPv4+IPv6) or IPv6‑first in mind. This is the only way to scale without running into hard limits on address availability.

How the New Rules Affect Hosting, VPS, Dedicated and Colocation Customers

You do not interact with RIPE NCC directly unless you run your own LIR. Instead, you feel policy changes indirectly through your hosting provider’s offers, pricing, and technical architecture. Here’s what the new IP allocation rules mean in practical terms.

1. Public IPv4 Becomes More Selective and Valuable

As IPv4 becomes scarcer under stricter allocation rules, every routable IPv4 address in a data center carries a higher opportunity cost. That typically leads to:

• Per‑IP pricing or tight limits on how many IPv4s each VPS or dedicated server can have.
• Increased use of shared IPs for web hosting with SNI, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, and reverse proxies.
• Greater reliance on reverse proxies and load balancers that terminate connections on a smaller pool of public IPs while fan‑out occurs over private RFC1918 or ULA space.

In concrete terms, if you previously received multiple IPv4s for “just in case” scenarios on a VPS, now you may be asked to justify extra addresses, or be guided towards solutions that use one IPv4 plus IPv6 and internal networking instead.

2. IPv6 Adoption Stops Being Optional

Under the new regime, anyone who wants to grow in the RIPE region must treat IPv6 as a core design element, not an afterthought. For hosting users, that means:

• Asking for IPv6 connectivity on VPS, dedicated servers, and colocation links from day one.
• Configuring web servers, application frameworks, and databases to listen on IPv6 as well as IPv4.
• Ensuring DNS has AAAA records for every public service, and that SSL/TLS is correctly configured for dual‑stack.

If you are unsure how to start, our IPv6 setup and configuration guide for your VPS server walks step‑by‑step through enabling IPv6, updating firewalls, and testing reachability.

3. Network Design Shifts: NAT, Proxies and Private Addressing

To reconcile limited IPv4 allocations with growing demand, providers lean on several technical tools:

• Layer‑7 reverse proxies (Nginx, HAProxy, etc.) in front of web and API servers.
• Carrier‑grade NAT (CGNAT) or custom NAT gateways to multiplex many internal endpoints behind a few public IPv4s.
• Private overlay networks (VPNs, mesh solutions, or VXLAN‑based fabrics) to connect internal services without consuming public IPs.

None of this is new, but RIPE NCC’s tighter allocation rules make these techniques no longer optional optimizations: they become standard architecture. At dchost.com we design our VPS and dedicated server networks with private addressing, dual‑stack edges, and well‑defined NAT boundaries, so that we can grow capacity without constantly chasing new IPv4 allocations.

4. Longer‑Term Contracts and More Predictable Address Planning

Because IPv4 transfer rules now incorporate holding periods and more complex justifications, providers are incentivized to:

• Plan IP addressing on a multi‑year horizon rather than month‑to‑month.
• Offer contracts where specific address ranges are tied to longer‑term dedicated or colocation services.
• Protect their address reputation and utilization, since it is not trivial to “reset” a block anymore.

For customers that need stable addressing – for example, when running payment gateways, VPN concentrators, or critical B2B APIs – this can be a positive change. The address space behind your services is now treated as a strategic asset that your provider wants to cultivate and maintain, not a disposable commodity.

How We Adapt at dchost.com – and What You Should Do

As a hosting provider operating in the RIPE NCC region, we have to align our internal practices with every policy update. Here’s how that translates into concrete benefits and expectations for you.

1. Proactive IPv4 Capacity Management

We track our IPv4 pools per product line (shared hosting, VPS, dedicated, colocation) and region. For each pool we maintain:

• Clear utilization targets, avoiding both hoarding (large idle blocks) and fragmentation (dozens of tiny scattered ranges).
• Reserved buffers for growth of existing customers, so a spike in demand doesn’t immediately force address re‑numbering.
• Reputation monitoring on mail and web ranges, because clean IP space is too valuable to risk with abuse.

When RIPE NCC tightens rules, we already have these controls in place, so you see adjustments mainly as more transparent IP policies and realistic expectations, not sudden shortages.

2. IPv6‑First Network and Product Design

Every new platform we roll out is designed as IPv6‑ready by default. That includes:

• Assigning IPv6 addresses to VPS and dedicated servers alongside IPv4.
• Ensuring our upstream connectivity and internal routing fully support dual‑stack.
• Documenting IPv6 DNS and firewall configuration in our customer guides.

We regularly point customers to our resources on rising IPv6 adoption and how to balance performance, security, and cost because policy pressure from RIPE NCC is only one part of the picture. In practice, IPv6 brings real gains in routing efficiency, end‑to‑end connectivity, and long‑term stability.

3. Encouraging Efficient Use Instead of Arbitrary Limits

Rather than simply saying “no” to extra IPv4s, we work with you to design:

• Reverse‑proxy setups where multiple sites share a small public IP pool cleanly via SNI and proper TLS.
• Private network segments for microservices, databases, and internal admin tools that do not need public addresses.
• Mail architectures (including dedicated sending IPs where justified) that keep deliverability high while staying within reasonable address usage.

This is similar to what we describe in our guides on re‑thinking infrastructure under IPv4 exhaustion and price increases: you get more reliability and scalability by using addresses intelligently, not by trying to accumulate as many as possible.

4. Supporting Your Own LIR or IP Strategy

Some of our colocation and large dedicated customers either already operate as LIRs or are considering that step. In those cases, RIPE NCC’s new IP allocation rules apply to you directly. We help by:

• Aligning our routing and peering with your address plan (your IPv4/IPv6 prefixes announced through our network).
• Coordinating RIPE Database entries (route, route6, and organization objects) with the technical realities in the data center.
• Advising on practical justifications for allocations and assignments based on what we see work in production.

Our experience following RIPE NCC’s infrastructure growth – which we covered in our article on RIPE NCC data center expansions and what they mean for IP infrastructure – helps us keep your routing stable while policies move forward.

Practical Action Plan: How to Adapt to the New RIPE NCC Rules

Whether you run a single high‑traffic site or a portfolio of SaaS products, the way RIPE NCC allocates IPs should influence your roadmap. Here’s a practical action list you can start on this quarter.

1. Inventory and Classify Your Current IP Usage

Begin with a simple but honest snapshot:

• List every public IPv4 you use, grouped by function: web frontends, APIs, VPNs, mail, monitoring, etc.
• Mark addresses that are under‑utilized (for example, a single test site on an otherwise empty IP).
• Check which services already have IPv6 enabled and which are still IPv4‑only.

This inventory allows you to see where you can consolidate, dual‑stack, or redesign to fit into a future where new IPv4 allocations from RIPE NCC will be minimal.

2. Dual‑Stack Public Services Wherever Possible

For every Internet‑facing service (web, API, mail, VPN, SaaS endpoints), ask:

• Does DNS publish both A and AAAA records?
• Is the application actually listening on IPv6 on the server side?
• Are firewalls and security groups configured symmetrically for IPv4 and IPv6?

Dual‑stacking does not eliminate your IPv4 needs, but it reduces future friction. As more eyeballs and partners shift to IPv6, you will experience fewer bottlenecks on your limited IPv4 addresses.

3. Refactor One‑IP‑Per‑App Designs

If you have an older pattern where every site or application received its own public IPv4, use RIPE’s policy changes as a reason to modernize:

• Introduce a reverse‑proxy layer (Nginx, HAProxy, or a dedicated load‑balancer) that terminates TLS and routes requests based on hostname or path.
• Move backend apps and databases to a private subnet reachable only from the proxy or a VPN.
• Reserve dedicated IPv4s only for roles that have clear, justified requirements (for example, separate mail‑sending pools or partner‑facing IP allow‑lists).

Not only does this help with address conservation, it usually improves observability, security, and performance – topics we also touch on in our articles about VPS log management and centralized monitoring.

4. Budget Realistically for IPv4 and Plan Growth on IPv6

Given RIPE NCC’s limited allocations and the active IPv4 transfer market, you should treat IPv4 like any scarce resource:

• Expect per‑IP pricing to remain or increase over the coming years.
• When comparing hosting offers, focus on total cost of ownership including IP addresses, not just raw CPU and RAM.
• Align growth plans (new regions, new products, white‑label offerings) with IPv6‑first designs, using IPv4 where truly necessary.

Our guides on optimizing hosting costs with proper VPS sizing and bandwidth planning pair nicely with this policy update: both push you to think holistically about resources instead of chasing the cheapest sticker price.

5. Talk to Your Provider Before You Hit a Wall

The worst time to discover that IPv4 is constrained is the week before a big launch. Instead:

• Share your 6‑ to 12‑month roadmap with your hosting provider, especially if you expect major user growth or new products.
• Ask about IPv6 readiness for all relevant services: CDN integration, WAF, DDoS protection, mail, VPN, and logging.
• Discuss multi‑server or multi‑region architectures that distribute load intelligently instead of just adding more IPv4‑heavy nodes.

This is exactly how we prefer to work at dchost.com: a short planning call or ticket thread about IP and network design often avoids painful last‑minute compromises later on.

Looking Ahead: RIPE NCC Policy, IPv6 and Your Long‑Term Strategy

RIPE NCC’s new IP allocation rules are not a temporary annoyance; they are part of a long‑term shift in how the global Internet treats addressing. IPv4 is a mature, finite resource that must be conserved and recycled carefully. IPv6 is the growth path.

Over the next few years you can expect:

• More policy refinements that tweak waiting lists, holding periods, and transfer rules in response to market behavior.
• Continued educational efforts from RIPE NCC and the community to get every network engineer comfortable with IPv6.
• Greater differences between networks that embraced dual‑stack early and those that delayed – in terms of costs, complexity, and user experience.

If you anchor your architecture around IPv6‑ready hosting, sensible IPv4 usage, and realistic budgeting, RIPE NCC’s policy changes become predictable constraints rather than constant shocks. Our own infrastructure roadmap at dchost.com is built on exactly this assumption: IPv4 will stay scarce and costly; IPv6 will keep gaining traction; and our job is to shield your projects from instability while guiding you towards future‑proof designs.

Conclusion: Turning RIPE NCC’s New Rules into an Advantage

RIPE NCC’s new IP allocation rules formalize what many network engineers have felt for years: the era of easy IPv4 growth is over. Allocations are tiny and carefully controlled, waiting lists govern reclaimed space, transfer rules discourage speculation, and IPv6 is no longer a side project – it is the main path forward.

You cannot change these policies, but you can decide how early and how calmly you adapt. By inventorying your IP usage, dual‑stacking public services, refactoring one‑IP‑per‑app designs, and budgeting realistically for IPv4 while planning real growth on IPv6, you turn a constraint into a competitive advantage. As the dchost.com team, we build our hosting, VPS, dedicated server and colocation offerings exactly with this in mind: efficient address use, IPv6‑ready infrastructure, and clear communication about what is possible under RIPE NCC’s rules.

If you are planning a new project or re‑architecting an existing one and want to understand how these allocation changes affect your specific setup, reach out to us. We are happy to review your requirements, propose a realistic address plan, and ensure your servers and applications stay comfortably ahead of the next round of policy updates.