IPv4 Transfer Policy by Region: RIPE, ARIN and APNIC

The one thing every registry agrees on

Address space can change holder. Every Regional Internet Registry has a transfer policy that lets a registered holder pass the registration and the right of use to another organisation, provided both sides meet the conditions and the documentation is in order.

What transfers is the registration, recorded by the registry. That is worth stating plainly because it is what makes the whole market work: the change is made in the registry rather than agreed privately between two parties, which is precisely what makes it enforceable and verifiable afterwards.

Beyond that shared principle the regions diverge, and the differences decide how long your transaction takes and what you have to prove.

RIPE NCC

Region: Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

The most straightforward of the three. RIPE does not require the recipient to justify need for transferred space, which removes the step that slows the other regions down. Both parties must be identifiable to the registry, the recipient must have the appropriate relationship in place (either their own LIR membership or a sponsoring LIR for provider independent and legacy resources), and the paperwork has to be complete.

Holding period. Space received via transfer currently cannot be transferred onward for 24 months. Plan around this if you are buying with any thought of reselling, and confirm the current figure before you commit, since holding periods are exactly the kind of policy that gets revised.

Timing. We file RIPE transfers within 24 hours of payment, and RIPE usually completes them in 1-3 business days, though registry processing is outside our control.

ARIN

Region: North America and parts of the Caribbean.

The most documentation-heavy. ARIN requires the recipient to demonstrate need for the space being received, which typically means showing utilisation of what you already hold and a credible plan for the new block. In practice recipients get pre-approved for a size before going to market, which is worth doing early because it determines what you can actually buy.

There is also an officer attestation requirement, meaning a real officer of the organisation signs off rather than an engineer. That single detail is responsible for a surprising share of the delay, because it lands on someone who is not following the transaction day to day.

Holding period. Currently 12 months before received space can be transferred again.

Timing. Usually 2-4 weeks, and the variance is almost entirely about how quickly your side returns documents.

APNIC

Region: Asia Pacific.

Sits between the two. APNIC requires the recipient to justify the request, though the evaluation is generally less involved than ARIN's. Both parties need to be APNIC account holders or work through one, and the source block must be free of encumbrances.

Timing. Usually 2-4 weeks, again driven mostly by documentation completeness.

Inter-RIR transfers

Space can move between regions, but only where both registries have compatible policies. In practice that means the recipient region's requirements apply on top of the source region's. Moving a block into ARIN means satisfying ARIN's needs test regardless of where it came from, and moving space out of a region means satisfying that region's release conditions.

The useful way to think about it: an inter-RIR transfer is not one transaction, it is two sets of requirements that both have to be met, on a timeline set by the slower of the two registries. They work, they are routine, and they take longer than a transfer within a single region.

Policies change, and each registry publishes its current transfer policy. Treat everything above as the shape of the process rather than a substitute for checking the text that applies on the day you transact.

Which regions we work in

We buy, sell and broker IPv4 in the RIPE, ARIN and APNIC regions, and handle inter-registry transfers between those three where policy permits. We do not currently transact in the LACNIC or AFRINIC regions.

That is a deliberate scope rather than a gap in capability. Those three registries cover Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, North America, the Caribbean and Asia Pacific, which is where the overwhelming majority of transfer volume happens, and staying inside them means we know the current policy properly rather than approximately.

Where RTM Networks fits

Most of the friction in a transfer is not the registry, it is discovering halfway through that a document is wrong, an entity name does not match, or the recipient was never eligible for the size they agreed to buy. We work out which rules apply to your case before anything is signed, and handle the registry side from both ends.

Tell us the region and the block size and we will tell you what your side will actually need to produce. We usually reply in 1-3 business hours.