Summary

  • APNIC lets an IPv4 recipient obtain a need pre-approval valid for 24 months, even before finding a source. Once a source initiates a transfer in MyAPNIC, the recipient must acknowledge it within 30 days or that request is cancelled.
  • APNIC evaluates the transfer after acknowledgement. The source must be the registered holder without a dispute over the resources; the recipient must meet current need criteria. A pre-approval can avoid repeating need justification for a matching size, but it does not complete the transfer.
  • For an approved transfer within APNIC's region, the recipient pays APNIC's transfer fee before the IPv4 record is updated in Whois, with an exception for NIR members. The administrative fee is a distinct gate from any private commercial terms.

The buyer has a file saying it is ready. The seller has the addresses. Who starts the clock? In APNIC's IPv4 Transfer Guide, the source account initiates the request in MyAPNIC. The recipient account then has 30 days to acknowledge it. Miss that window and the request is cancelled. The guide does not say the recipient loses its earlier need pre-approval. The two approvals sit on different clocks, and their order matters more than the tidy phrase “transfer approved” suggests.

The long clock starts before a source is found. A prospective IPv4 recipient can ask APNIC to assess its need in advance. If approved, that assessment lasts 24 months from the approval date. APNIC sends the approved size and expiry date, then a reminder 30 days before expiry. If the eventual source offers a block within that approved size, the recipient need not provide the same justification again. A new pre-approval, if approved before the source initiates, replaces the old one. That is useful preparation for a transaction, but it is a decision about the recipient's needs, not a reservation of a particular address block.

The short clock begins when the current holder acts. The source opens the transfer request. The recipient must acknowledge within 30 days, after which APNIC assesses the actual transfer. No amount of remaining life on a two-year pre-approval extends that acknowledgement period in the published guide. A recipient that has spent months assembling finance and network plans can still lose the live workflow through an unanswered portal action. APNIC describes cancellation of the request, not automatic cancellation of a private contract or revocation of the pre-approval.

The distinction is the entire operational point: commercial readiness and registry workflow have separate receipts.

APNIC's current Internet Number Resource Policies then set the substantive conditions. For a transfer within its region, the source must be the registered holder of the IPv4 resource and must face no dispute over its status. The recipient is subject to current APNIC policies. One that does not already hold IPv4 resources must show a detailed plan to use the transferred space within 24 months. One that already holds IPv4 resources must supply a detailed 24-month plan, past usage rate and evidence of compliance with past delegations. The minimum transfer size is a /24, and addresses from the 103/8 free pool cannot transfer for five years after original delegation. These requirements attach to the resource and the participants; an earlier need pre-approval does not authenticate the source or make a disputed block transferable.

There are two different “24 months” in those documents. The guide's pre-approval lasts 24 months from APNIC's approval date. The policy asks for a plan to use the transferred resource within 24 months. One clock measures the shelf life of a recipient's needs decision; the other measures its proposed deployment after receipt. An operations team that copies the number without its trigger date can arrive with a valid-looking file for the wrong question.

The final gate is neither a signature nor a routing announcement. The guide says that, for an approved IPv4 transfer within the APNIC region, the recipient pays a transfer fee before APNIC updates the IPv4 registration in its Whois Database. National Internet Registry members are excepted from that fee. This is APNIC's administrative charge, not a published price for the address block. The transfer overview lists five transfer scenarios involving APNIC accounts, national registries and other RIRs. The fee sentence and 30-day acknowledgement sequence are stated for the guide's intra-region process; a buyer cannot paste them unchanged onto every scenario on that list.

This sequence gives a board or transaction team a better closing checklist than “the buyer is pre-approved.” Ask for the pre-approval decision with its size and expiry. Ask whether the seller is the registered holder of the exact block and whether a dispute or 103/8 holding period affects it. Record the source initiation timestamp and the recipient acknowledgement timestamp. Then track APNIC's actual evaluation, its approval and the administrative fee receipt before expecting the Whois record to change. Each receipt answers a different question.

A missing one leaves a gap between a private deal and the public registry state operators and counterparties will consult.

APNIC's pages do not publish a count of transfer requests cancelled after the 30-day window or the time between fee payment and Whois update. Those dated operational records would establish how often the clocks bite. For now, the written mechanism is clear. The registry gives the buyer a generous window to establish need, then a much shorter window to answer a specific seller-initiated request. The public record changes only after the policy check and fee condition are satisfied. Address mobility lives in those handoffs, not in the word “portable.”