Searching for an "IPv4 provider" turns up three different kinds of company answering the same query with the same vocabulary. A brokerage will sell a registered block. A leasing marketplace will rent one out for a monthly fee. A hosting or tunnel provider will assign or route a single address to a server. All three use words like buy, lease, and get, and none of the three deliver the same thing.
The right provider depends entirely on what happens after the address arrives. A purchased block has to be announced by an autonomous system the buyer controls, or arranged through an upstream that will do it on their behalf. A leased block carries the same requirement, under a private contract instead of a registry transfer. A routed address needs neither, because the provider keeps the announcement and delivers the traffic itself. This guide compares the real companies operating in each of the three markets in 2026, what they publish about pricing and process, and the fraud pattern specific to a market where the product itself has no physical form to inspect.
| Provider | Best for | Model | Minimum | ASN needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPv4.Global | Buying a block, auction or private deal | Purchase | /24+ | Usually |
| Prefix Broker | Buying or leasing across five registries | Purchase & lease | /24+ | Yes |
| IPXO | Leasing at scale | Lease | /24+ | Yes |
| Taipan Transit | Small quantities, portable across hosts | Routed IPv4 | /32 | No |
| HYEHOST | A single routed IP over GRE or WireGuard | Routed IPv4 | /32 | No |
| NovaCloud-Hosting | Routed IPv4 with IPv6 bundled in | Routed IPv4 | /32 | No |
| Core Transit | Home lab or CGNAT connections | Routed IPv4 | /31 | No |
| Hetzner | An existing Hetzner server | Assigned IP | /32 | No |
| AWS | An existing AWS account | Assigned IP | /32 | No |
"Minimum" is the smallest realistic order for that model, not a hard technical floor. Registry transfers and leases both trade in blocks because a /24 is the smallest prefix most networks accept into the global routing table; the routed and assigned rows deliver a single address because the provider does the announcing. "ASN needed" answers a narrower question: who has to run BGP, not who holds the paperwork.
Buying, leasing, and renting are three different products
A purchased IPv4 block is registered space transferred permanently into the buyer's own account at a regional internet registry. RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC, and AFRINIC each run their own transfer policy, and getting a transfer approved usually means holding a registry membership, meeting a needs test, and accepting whatever holding period the registry attaches to the address once it lands.
A leased IPv4 block stays registered to whoever owns it. The lessee gets a Letter of Authorization and, in most current arrangements, a signed Route Origin Authorization, and pays a monthly fee for the right to announce the space themselves. No registry transfer happens at all, which is why leasing moves faster than buying and skips the needs test, but the lessee still needs an ASN and an upstream that accepts the prefix.
A routed IPv4 address involves no registry action by the customer at all. The provider holds the registered space, announces it from its own network, and carries traffic for a specific address to the customer's server over a tunnel. Taipan Transit is one of the providers running this model, covered in more detail further down this guide.
The difference between an assigned address and a transferred block is covered step by step in Can you buy a single IPv4 address?, and a full cost breakdown across the purchase, registry-queue, lease, and routed-tunnel markets is in What an IPv4 address costs in 2026. This guide focuses on the companies operating in each market rather than the underlying cost model.