Summary

  • APNIC charges 25% of the applicable annual fee for each three-month temporary-assignment period, with a six-month maximum.
  • Resources returned before their end date skip ordinary quarantine and become immediately available for another temporary assignment; APNIC publishes no usage count on its range list.

A network for a short window

Internet-number requests are usually discussed as durable allocations: how much space is needed, what it will support and how it fits into an operator’s longer-term plan. APNIC’s temporary-assignment policy addresses a narrower need. A conference, workshop or Network Operator Group meeting may need public addressing or an Autonomous System Number for a limited technical purpose, even when a permanent assignment would not make sense. The policy also allows other special purposes when APNIC accepts the justification.

The window is bounded. Temporary use may not exceed six months. In most cases, APNIC will provide no more than a /24 IPv4 prefix, a /32 IPv6 prefix and one ASN unless the applicant demonstrates a need for more. APNIC decides the period after considering the justification and the time needed to establish the event’s infrastructure. An extension can be requested with reasons; it is not automatic. Approved assignments are registered in the APNIC Whois Database, and the rules warn that the resources may not be fully routable. These are operating conditions, not a promise that a requested block will be available.

The fee is measured in periods

Since 7 February 2026, APNIC’s published fee for a temporary assignment is 25% of the Annual Fee for the resources being approved for each three-month period. The rule applies to Members and Non-Members, the assignment may last no more than six months, and it does not count toward a Member’s membership tier. The fee is resource-sensitive: APNIC’s general Annual Fee formula uses a base fee and a bit factor raised to the address bits held. There is therefore no single temporary-assignment price that can be inferred without the approved resource size and relevant account fee basis.

The change was presented at the APNIC AGM in March 2026 after feedback at APNIC 60. The Executive Council’s earlier setting had charged 50% of the Annual Fee for a six-month term; the revised rule charges 25% per three-month period. The arithmetic matters. Two periods total 50% over six months, so the published rates do not by themselves show a lower price for a full six-month use. They make the price legible in shorter units. The sources do not say whether a shorter actual use is prorated within a three-month fee period, so this should not be assumed.

The return rule changes the next user’s clock

The more distinctive feature appears at the end of an assignment. The holder must return the resources before the stated end date. Once APNIC receives them back, they are exempt from the ordinary quarantine applied to returned resources and are immediately available for further temporary assignments. The exception connects one event’s end date to the next applicant’s possible start date. It makes early return operationally useful to the shared pool, though it does not provide a rebate to the first holder and does not prove that another applicant is waiting.

This is a deliberate service design, not evidence of observed turnover. APNIC may decline a request if the resources are unavailable for the requested period. Temporary assignments are limited to APNIC account holders; an organization without an account can nominate an existing account holder or become an Associate member. Commercial use is prohibited, while the policy gives non-profit Network Operator Group conferences as an example of a non-commercial purpose. Those conditions narrow who can use the pool and for what.

A range list is not a live inventory

APNIC’s resource-range page identifies IPv4 163.61.168.0/21, IPv6 240C:2000::/29 and ASNs 153624–153631 as reserved for temporary assignments. A /21 contains 2,048 IPv4 addresses by CIDR arithmetic, but that number is not a count of concurrent /24 grants or open capacity. The page describes ranges set aside for a purpose; it does not report current occupancy, requests, approvals, returns, waiting time or reuse. A listed pool and an available pool are different measurements.

The evidence therefore supports a precise conclusion: APNIC has paired a three-month fee unit with a return path that bypasses ordinary quarantine for temporary resources. It does not show how quickly APNIC reassigns a returned block in practice, how frequently early returns occur, or how often requests fail for lack of capacity. Those outcomes require a dated lifecycle record, not just a range list.

Sources: APNIC Internet Number Resource Policies, APNIC-127 v015; APNIC temporary-assignment fees; APNIC AGM fee revision; APNIC resource ranges; prop-156 history.