Policies Regarding Leasing IPv4 Addresses

by Lee Howard

As the leasing market is heating up, and following several years of proposals to allow or prohibit IP leasing, here’s the current policy situation in each region. “Leasing” is generally understood to mean delegating or assigning addresses to an organization that is not a connectivity customer. To put it another way, address assignments are traditionally from an Internet service provider or cloud/hosting company to their customer. Leasing is when that assignment does not come with a connection to the Internet.

RIPE

The sentiment of the RIPE community is generally focused on keeping the public database accurate. RIPE therefore has permissive policies, including a temporary transfer policy explicitly intended to facilitate leasing:

2.1 Transfer Requirements

Transfers must be reflected in the RIPE Database. Transfers can be on a permanent or non-permanent basis.

The original resource holder remains responsible for an Internet number resource until the transfer to the receiving party is completed. In the case of a temporary transfer, the original resource holder re-assumes responsibility when the resource is returned. The current resource holder must ensure that all relevant policies are applied.

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-807/

Note that temporary transfers only apply to addresses transferred within the region: they do not have a temporary inter-RIR transfer policy.

ARIN

ARIN’s policies are silent on leasing, but the staff has made clear anyone with an allocation from ARIN can lease out those addresses. However, leases will not qualify as efficient utilization for the purpose of justifying a transfer.

Address space leased without providing Internet services cannot be used for justification when requesting IPv4 addresses

https://www.arin.net/blog/2023/02/23/ipv4-leasing/

An organization with an abundance of addresses can lease some of their addresses. If they need more addresses, they need to meet justification thresholds (sections 4.2.4.1 and 4.3.3) without including the leases. An organization that will not need to justify additional addresses can lease all of their space.

APNIC

APNIC’s policies don’t allow leasing out APNIC registered addresses. Addresses can only be assigned “in relation to network connectivity services.”

3.1.3 Aggregation

LIRs must only delegate addresses to customers who will be using those addresses in relation to network connectivity services provided by the LIR.

LIRs are expected to enter into agreements with their customers specifying that the end-user will hold the addresses only for so long as the end-user remains a customer of that LIR. Such agreements should also be consistent with the license under which the address space is being used by the LIR.

Further, if the justification for the original allocation changes, the allocation is no longer valid.

4.1 License Renewal

IRs will generally renew licenses automatically, provided account holders are making a good-faith effort at meeting the criteria under which they qualified for, or were granted an allocation or assignment.

Licenses to account holders shall be renewable on the following conditions:

• The original basis of the delegation remains valid, and

4.1.2 Validity of delegations

An allocation or assignment becomes invalid if it is:

• Made for a specific purpose that no longer exists, or
• Based on information that is later found to be false or incomplete.

APNIC may revoke addresses from an organization that leases them out.

4.2 Closure and recovery

If an LIR holding APNIC address space ceases to provide Internet connectivity services, all of its address space must be returned to APNIC. It is the responsibility of the LIR (or any liquidator or administrator appointed to wind up the account holder’s business) to advise all of its customers that address space will be returned to APNIC, and that renumbering into new address space will be necessary.

In the case that a new LIR takes over the business or infrastructure of the closed LIR, the existing address space may be transferred to the new LIR, however such a transfer is subject to re-examination by APNIC and may be treated as a new address request process.

https://www.apnic.net/community/policy/resources

All allocations/assignments in the APNIC region are subject to these policies. There are no legacy resources in the APNIC region. https://www.apnic.net/community/policy/resources#a_h_4_2_1

APNIC can not prohibit organizations in its region from leasing addresses from another RIR.

LACNIC

LACNIC policy is clear that address assignments are to be used within the network infrastructure.

0.9. Assign

Therefore, sub-assignments to third parties outside said infrastructure (for example, the use of end-user assignments for ISPs or similar clients) and providing addresses to third parties in data centers (and others) are not allowed.

Connectivity is assumed in other parts of the policies.

2.3.2.13. Registering assignments

All IPv4 address block assignments of a /29 or larger block made by an ISP to customers connected to their network and users of services provided must be registered on LACNIC’s WHOIS database 

https://www.lacnic.net/680/2/lacnic/lacnic-policy-manual-v219—22_08_2023

However, LACNIC has had discussion and clarification. Legacy resources, i.e., addresses assigned before LACNIC and ARIN (the previous RIR for the region) existed, are exempt from this policy.

https://blog.lacnic.net/en/ip-address-leasing-creating-a-space-for-dialogue

AFRINIC

AFRINIC policy strongly implies that leasing is prohibited.

2.3 Local Internet Registry (LIR)

A Local Internet Registry (LIR) is an IR that receives allocations from an RIR and primarily assigns address space to ‘end-users’. LIRs are generally ISPs.

2.6 Assignment

An assignment is an IP address block given by an LIR to its end-users for their own usage. To “assign” means to delegate address space to an ISP or End User for specific use within the Internet infrastructure they operate. 

5.5.1.1.1 AFRINIC allocates ranges of IPv4 addresses to Local Internet Registries (LIRs). LIRs reassign or sub-allocate that space to their customers. 

https://www.afrinic.net/library/policies/2479-consolidated-policy-manual-v12

Summary

IPv4.Global complies with all RIR policies. As members of the global Internet community, we seek to provide organizations with addresses they need, in compliance with those policies. Therefore:

• We will lease out addresses registered in ARIN or the RIPE NCC.
• We will lease out legacy addresses in the LACNIC region.
• We will not lease out addresses registered in APNIC, LACNIC, or AFRINIC.
• We will lease addresses to organizations in APNIC, LACNIC, or AFRINIC.

Policies can change, and there are policy proposals in several RIRs that would change these rules. We believe these to be accurate as of August 2024.