Definitions
A native IP is an IP whose registration country matches the country of the datacenter or physical location where it is used. Most residential broadband IPs are native, as are those of many local IDC providers.
Multinational IDC providers (AWS, GCP, Azure and similar) typically buy large blocks and announce them across different countries for easier management. Those are called broadcast IPs.
| Label | Meaning | Typical examples |
|---|---|---|
| Native IP | Registration country matches geolocation country | Residential broadband, local business networks, local IDC |
| Broadcast IP | IP range registration country differs from the selected geolocation; missing data is unknown | AWS / GCP / Azure cross-border nodes, Cloudflare anycast, overseas PoPs |
How it is determined
CleanIP compares only the IP range registration country with the selected geolocation country: equal means native, different means broadcast. The range registration country is the country in the five RIRs' daily delegation files, i.e. the country of the holder the RIR allocated the block to — the same basis as MaxMind's registered country and other mainstream databases. Only when the delegation file gives a region code do we fall back to whois and RDAP. A different ASN registration country is a separate cross-region notice and never determines this verdict. No current BGP announcement retains the unannounced state.
Doing this by hand means checking the RIRs' daily delegation files (RIPE / ARIN / APNIC …) for the country the block was allocated to, looking up its geolocation separately, then comparing the two. Many guides use the inetnum country in Whois instead, but the holder fills that field in themselves and it can differ from the allocation: a block allocated to a German company and used in Japan looks native once it is relabelled JP.
CleanIP shows Native IP or Broadcast IP on the result card, with registration evidence for verification. ASN cross-region status is an independent notice.
Why platform risk systems care
To a risk system, a native IP looks closer to "someone who actually lives in that country", while a broadcast IP looks like "someone connecting from elsewhere whose exit happens to be there". For the same country, native IPs generally pass more often.
- Streaming and content platforms: regional catalogue and licensing checks favour native IPs
- AI tools (Claude / ChatGPT / Gemini): signup and login flows are more sensitive to broadcast IPs
- Cross-border commerce and social media: account-region consistency checks trigger step-up verification more often on broadcast IPs
Native does not mean clean. Native/broadcast describes registration and geolocation consistency and does not directly reduce purity. Provenance contributes to identity and composite scores; abuse history, proxy detection and blocklists are assessed independently.
Common misconceptions
Does a native IP guarantee it will not be blocked?
No. Native only means the registration and geolocation countries match; it says nothing about the IP's history. Too many shared users, blocklist entries, or being identified as a proxy exit will each lower the purity score.
Is every datacenter IP a broadcast IP?
No. A local IDC provider's block, registered and used in the same country, is native. Only blocks announced by a multinational IDC in a different country are broadcast.
Why do different sites disagree about the same IP?
Geolocation databases update at different rates. After a block changes hands, commercial databases usually refresh weekly while some free sources take a month or more, so they disagree for a while. CleanIP cross-checks multiple sources and flags the confidence level and likely reason.
Check which one your IP is
Enter any IPv4 / IPv6, or leave it blank to check your own. The result card shows the native / broadcast verdict along with registration history.
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