Summary

  • RIPE NCC’s 23 October member update records 2,173,440 IPv4 addresses transferred in September, up 919,808 from August. It also lists 806 LIRs waiting for recovered IPv4 and 487 days waited by the first LIR in that queue.
  • Transfers move existing holdings between parties. The waiting list draws on addresses the registry recovers or receives back, then quarantines. Transfer volume does not tell an applicant how soon a recovered /24 will arrive.

The address market can be busy while the newcomer’s tap stays dry. In its October member update, RIPE NCC recorded 2,173,440 IPv4 addresses transferred during September 2026. In the same table, 806 local internet registries were on its IPv4 waiting list, and the first in line had already waited 487 days. These are not two measures of one supply pool. They are the output of two different rules.

A transfer changes who holds an existing registration. RIPE NCC’s transfer guidance says the registry authorises and facilitates the change from one holder to another. The October total is an address count, not a count of transactions or a disclosed cash price. Nothing in the update says that those transferred addresses entered the pool available to first-time waitlist applicants.

The waiting list receives something else. Under RIPE NCC’s queue explainer, recovered or returned addresses are held in quarantine before allocation. An eligible LIR that has never received an IPv4 allocation from the RIPE NCC can seek one /24, or 256 addresses, when enough contiguous space is available. It is one allocation per LIR account. The registry explicitly promises delivery only if and when it recovers enough addresses. An active transfer register cannot make that promise faster.

The comparison with the September member update sharpens the divide. That earlier report listed 1,253,632 IPv4 addresses transferred in August, 786 LIRs waiting and a 476-day wait for the first LIR. The October report’s transfer count rose by 919,808; the queue count rose by 20 and the front wait by 11 days. The snapshots do not reveal how many /24s were actually recovered and allocated between them. They do show why citing a large transfer month as relief for the queue is an accounting trick.

This separation matters to any operator planning an IPv4-dependent launch. An approved request for a recovered /24 is a place in line, not an option on the inventory circulating in transfers. The new entrant can seek an existing holder willing to transfer resources, but that is a different acquisition path with different counterparties and due diligence. RIPE NCC updates the registry record in both cases; it does not create new IPv4 by doing so.