Dear SIG members, A new version of the proposal "prop-168: Increase to maximum IPv4 delegations” has been sent to the Policy SIG for review. Information about earlier versions is available from: https://www.apnic.net/community/policy/proposals/prop-168/ You are encouraged to express your views on the proposal:
* Do you support or oppose the proposal? * Is there anything in the proposal that is not clear? * What changes could be made to this proposal to make it more effective? Please find the text of the proposal below. prop-168-v003: Increase to maximum IPv4 delegations ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proposers: Christopher Hawker ([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>) 1. Problem statement ------------------------- As of 29 July 2026, there were 3,013,120 IPv4 addresses (11,770 x /24) in the available pool [1]. Since prop-127 was implemented back on 04 April 2019 there were 549 new account holders in 2025 (as of 03/12/2025), 667 new account holders in 2024 [2], 904 in 2023 [3], 824 in 2022 [4], 783 in 2021 [5], 827 in 2020 [6] and 841 in 2019 [7] (noting that this also includes Q1 2024 which was prior to implementation of prop-127). At the current average of 727 new accounts per year, and if each account holder was to apply for the maximum delegation of /23, the delegation rate would be approximately 1454 x /24 per year, meaning the pool will be exhausted in 2035. This means that resources will sit idle in the available pool for an extended period (up to 9 years), while current account holders are required to acquire additional space through market transfers or lease address space to meet operational requirements. [Note: Full-year new account holder statistics for 2025 were not published in the APNIC 2025 Annual Report.] 2. Objective of policy change ---------------------------------- Current address policy only allows for the maximum delegation of up to and including a /23 to new and existing account holders. This policy change will allow a sub-set of account holders with less than an aggregated /22 to receive an additional delegation of up to a maximum of a /22 IPv4 delegation. 3. Situation in other regions -------------------------------- - The maximum size aggregate a member in the ARIN region may qualify for at any one time a maximum is a /22 [8]. - "The sum of all allocations made to a single LIR by the RIPE NCC is limited to a maximum of 256 IPv4 addresses (a single /24)." [9] - Exhaustion Phase 2 (section 5.4.3.2) in AFRINIC's Consolidated Policy Manual states that the "maximum will be /22 per allocation/assignment" [10]. - LACNIC's Policy Manual lists under section 11.1.4 "Policies Relating to the Exhaustion of IPv4 Address Space" that the maximum size a new member may receive is a /22, while under 11.1.2 it states that existing members are ineligible for additional space under this policy [11]. 4. Proposed policy solution -------------------------------- Update "APNIC-127 APNIC Internet Number Resource Policies" with the below: - Delete paragraphs 2 and 3 from section 6.1 "Minimum and maximum IPv4 delegations", and replace with the following: Account holders who hold less than a /22 may apply for additional space, to bring their combined holdings up to and including a /22. Account holders who have transferred any IPv4 address space of any size out of their account are ineligible for further delegations from APNIC. - Delete paragraph 4 from section 11.0 "IPv4 Transfers", and replace with the following: Addresses delegated from the available pool cannot be transferred for a minimum of five years from the date of delegation. If an account holder received an initial delegation and applies for a subsequent delegation, all delegations to the account holder cannot be transferred for a minimum of 5 years from the date of the most recent delegation. - Update point 4 from paragraph 1 under section 11.1.1 "Conditions on the space to be transferred" as below: Addresses delegated from the available pool cannot be transferred for a minimum of five years from the date the original delegation was made. If the source entity received a delegation from APNIC within the last 5 years, any resources delegated from the available pool (including those delegated over 5 years ago) cannot be transferred for a minimum of 5 years from the date the most recent delegation was made. - Delete paragraph 3 from section 11.2.1 "Conditions on the space to be transferred" and replace with the following: Some RIRs, including APNIC, have restrictions against the transfer of certain address blocks. APNIC policy does not allow the transfer of address space delegated from the available pool to be transferred for a minimum of five years from the date of the most recent delegation to the account holder. - Delete paragraph 2 from section 14.0 "Mergers & Acquisitions" and replace with the following: Addresses delegated from the available pool cannot be transferred for a minimum of five years from the date of the most recent delegation from the available pool. - Add new section 5.1.5 "Reservation for IPv4 to IPv6 Transitioning": APNIC will reserve a /12 IPv4 subnet from the available pool, for the purpose of delegating a maximum /24 address block to each new account holder, in order to assist with IPv4 to IPv6 transitioning once the available pool for delegation has been exhausted. IPv4 addresses delegated from this pool are ineligible for transfers, and must be returned to APNIC when no longer required. Account holders who currently hold or have ever held IPv4 address space are ineligible for address space under this policy, except where that space was returned to APNIC. Delegations from this pool will be made once all other address space available or reserved for general delegation have been exhausted. If an account holder receives an IPv4 delegation under this policy and is found to not be using the address space for IPv4-to-IPv6 transitioning, APNIC may recover the IPv4 resources from the account holder. - Delete sentence 2, paragraph 2, section 5.7.2 "Allocations for experimental purposes" which currently reads: This address space will be unreserved and put back in the general pool after five years for delegation to account holders as per IPv4 policy in Section 6.0 below. 5. Advantages / Disadvantages ------------------------------------ Advantages: - This will help to make additional resources available to organisations who need it, that would otherwise need to acquire space through market transfers or lease address space. Disadvantages: - This policy will accelerate the exhaustion of IPv4 address space, however, given the slow rate of new accounts the benefits of additional space becoming available to account holders outweigh the disadvantages of accelerated exhaustion. - This may create a sudden rush of new applications for additional resources, leading to extended waiting times for the assessment of applications. 6. Impact on resource holders ----------------------------------- No known impacts to resource holders. 7. References ---------------- [1] APNIC Delegation Statistics as of 29 July 2026: https://ftp.apnic.net/stats/apnic/2026/delegated-apnic-extended-20260729.gz [2] Page 22, APNIC 2024 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/APNIC-AR-2024.pdf [3] Page 19, APNIC 2023 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/APNIC_AR_2023.pdf [4] Page 17, APNIC 2022 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/APNIC_AR_2022_FINAL.pdf [5] Page 17, APNIC 2021 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/APNIC_AR_2021.pdf [6] Page 18, APNIC 2020 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/APNIC-2020-Annual-Report.pdf [7] Page 30, APNIC 2019 Activity Report: https://www.apnic.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/APNIC-AR-2019-FINAL.pdf [8] ARIN Waitlist, Number Resource Policy Manual, ARIN: https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#4-1-8-arin-waitlist [9] Allocations made by the RIPE NCC to LIRs, IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment Policies for the RIPE NCC Service Region, RIPE NCC: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-826/#51-allocations-made-by-the-ripe-ncc-to-lirs [10] Soft Landing, Consolidated Policy Manual, AFRINIC: https://afrinic.net/policy/manual#Soft-Landing [11] Policies relating to the Exhaustion of IPv4 Address Space, LACNIC Policy Manual: https://www.lacnic.net/innovaportal/file/680/1/manual-politicas-en-2-21.pdf Regards, Bikram, Shaila, and Ching-Heng APNIC Policy SIG Chairs
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