Free IP Geolocation APIs: Limits, HTTPS, Commercial Use
IP geolocation estimates where an internet address is, usually to a city or a country. Plenty of providers give it away free, but the free tiers differ in volume, in whether they use an encrypted connection, in whether a business may use them and in which fields they return. We read 10 providers' own pages on the same day.
Free IP geolocation APIs differ more in their rules than in their numbers. On October 16, 2026, ipinfo Lite gave unlimited requests but country-level data only. ip-api.com allowed 45 requests a minute with no HTTPS and no commercial use. ipwhois.io (1,000 a day) and freeipapi.com (60 a minute) allowed commercial use. sthan.io gives 50,000 lookups a month with city-level fields, HTTPS and no credit card.
Free tiers side by side
Every cell comes from the provider's own pricing, documentation or terms page, read on October 16, 2026. "Not stated" means we did not find it on the pages listed in the sources.
| Provider | Free amount | HTTPS on free | Commercial use on free | Fields on free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sthan.io | 50,000 a month, up to 2,000 a minute; no card | Yes | No restriction stated on its pricing page, which calls its free tiers "perfect for testing, development, and small projects" | Country, region, city, postal code, coordinates, timezone, ASN, ISP, organization, mobile, proxy and hosting flags, confidence score when the checks agree |
| IP2Location.io | 50,000 queries a month; the service stops when they run out | Yes (HTTPS sample on its pricing page) | Attribution required; commercial use not stated on its pricing page | Country, region, city, ZIP code, coordinates, time zone, ASN, proxy flag (its free-plan example response) |
| ipinfo Lite | Unlimited API requests; no card | Yes | Yes, attribution required | Country and continent, ASN name and domain (country level only) |
| ipwhois.io | 1,000 a day; no signup or key; uptime not guaranteed | Yes | Yes | Location, flag, connection (ASN, org, ISP), timezone; no currency or security data |
| freeipapi.com | 60 a minute (10 per 10 seconds); no account | Yes (TLS/SSL) | Yes | Country, region, city, ZIP, timezones, currencies, languages, ASN, proxy (list on its home page); servers in Europe only |
| ipgeolocation.io | 1,000 credits a day (a standard lookup is 1 credit); no card | Not stated on its pricing page | No rule stated; its pricing page says the free plan "is for evaluation, testing, and prototypes" | Location essentials, country metadata, basic ASN and organization, currency and time zone; accuracy radius and confidence are paid |
| ip-api.com | 45 requests a minute per IP address; no key | No | No | Country, region, city, ZIP, coordinates, timezone, ISP, org, AS, mobile, proxy and hosting flags |
| ipapi.co | Up to 1,000 a day (about 30,000 a month) for a limited time, by request | Yes | No: "not meant for use in production" | Fields by plan not shown in its API docs; the documented response has city, postal code, coordinates, timezone, currency, ASN and org |
| apiip.net | 1,000 a month; no card | Shown as included on the free pricing card, though its FAQ lists SSL encryption among premium-plan features | Testing in a non-production site or app | Location module only |
| MaxMind GeoLite | Downloadable database (30 downloads a day) or web service at 1,000 lookups a day per service | Database runs on your own servers | Internal business use with attribution; a separate Commercial GeoLite license to build it into products; MaxMind says GeoLite City "is not recommended for commercial use cases" | City, country and ASN databases; city locations come with an accuracy radius |
| IP2Location LITE | Downloadable database | Database runs on your own servers | Yes, attribution required | Country, region, city, coordinates, ZIP code, time zone |
The two database options have no request limit because the lookups run on your machine, but you must keep them current: MaxMind's terms require deleting a GeoLite database within 30 days of a new release. IP2Location.io, in the table above, is IP2Location's hosted API.
The same limits on one monthly scale
Daily caps, per-minute caps and monthly quotas are hard to compare as listed. Here is each one turned into free lookups in a 30-day month (our arithmetic). A per-minute cap is a speed limit, so its monthly figure is a ceiling you would reach only by sending requests nonstop, from one IP address.
| Provider | Limit as published | Free lookups in 30 days |
|---|---|---|
| ipinfo Lite | Unlimited | Unlimited (country level) |
| freeipapi.com | 60 a minute | Up to 2,592,000 (speed limit only) |
| ip-api.com | 45 a minute per IP | Up to 1,944,000 (speed limit only; non-commercial) |
| sthan.io | 50,000 a month | 50,000 |
| IP2Location.io | 50,000 a month | 50,000 |
| ipwhois.io | 1,000 a day | 30,000 |
| ipgeolocation.io | 1,000 credits a day | 30,000 |
| MaxMind GeoLite web service | 1,000 a day per service | 30,000 |
| ipapi.co | Up to 1,000 a day, limited time | About 30,000 (trial) |
| apiip.net | 1,000 a month | 1,000 |
Among the city-level APIs in this table, sthan.io and IP2Location.io tie for the largest fixed monthly quota at 50,000 a month. freeipapi.com and ip-api.com allow more only if you send requests steadily under their speed limits, and freeipapi.com's free plan runs on servers in Europe only. Those speed-limit figures are ceilings that no provider promises.
One live lookup
We looked up 1.1.1.1, a public DNS service address, on the sthan.io production API on October 16, 2026 at 15:18 UTC. This production lookup shows the response fields described in the sthan.io docs; we did not test it using a restricted free account. It does not measure accuracy. The main fields that came back:
| Field | Value returned |
|---|---|
| country, region, city | Australia, Queensland, Brisbane |
| postalCode | 9010 |
| timezone, currentLocalTime | Australia/Brisbane, 2026-10-17T01:18:37+10:00 |
| asn, asName, isp | 13335, CLOUDFLARENET, Cloudflare, Inc |
| isHosting, isProxy, isMobile | true, false, false |
| precision | city |
| confidence | 0.67 |
Two fields matter most for a free-tier comparison. isHosting: true says the address belongs to a data centre network. It describes the network, and it does not say where any person is. ipwhois.io, for example, puts its own hosting flag in the security data its free tier leaves out. confidence is a score from 0 to 1 that sthan.io describes as how strongly independent checks agreed on the city. Treat it as a relative signal that sthan.io does not present as a probability: at 0.67, a careful app would lean on the country more than the city. The score is left out when the address is new to sthan.io or the checks did not agree. ipinfo's own Lite example for the same address shows the country as Australia, with no city, because Lite is country level.
What providers say about accuracy
- MaxMind: "A geolocation area is a circle defined by latitude, longitude, and an accuracy radius, which ranges from a few kilometers to 1000 kilometers."
- ipapi.co: "Latitude / Longitude are often near the center of population. The values aren't precise & shouldn't be used to identify a particular address or household."
- IP2Location: the LITE edition is a database "with limited accuracy".
- ip-api.com: "the information returned may contain errors or be inaccurate".
- MaxMind, on its free city data: "The free GeoLite City is considerably less accurate than the paid GeoIP City data".
- sthan.io: "IP geolocation resolves to a city or region, not a street address. Some IPs, such as large infrastructure ranges, resolve only to a country."
Use IP location for defaults and signals: a currency, a language, a region, a fraud check. When you need a real address, ask the user for one and check it with an address API.
Where sthan.io fits. sthan.io IP Geolocation covers IPv4 and IPv6 addresses worldwide and returns location to city and postal code where available, timezone with local time, the network behind the address, mobile, proxy and hosting flags, and a confidence score when the checks agree on the city. The free tier is 50,000 lookups a month, up to 2,000 a minute, with no credit card. Paid plans start at $4.50 a month for 100,000, and $32 for 1,000,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources
All read October 16, 2026. Free tiers change; check the provider's page before you build on one.
- sthan.io production API, /IpGeolocation lookup of 1.1.1.1 (docs)
- sthan.io IP Geolocation product page
- sthan.io global pricing (IP Geolocation tab)
- ipinfo pricing
- ipinfo Lite
- ipapi.co pricing
- ipapi.co API docs
- ip-api.com home page
- ip-api.com JSON endpoint docs
- ip-api.com legal
- ip-api.com pro (members)
- ipgeolocation.io pricing
- MaxMind GeoLite free geolocation data (developer docs)
- MaxMind GeoLite page
- MaxMind GeoLite EULA
- ipwhois.io pricing
- freeipapi.com
- apiip.net pricing (read in a browser)
- apiip.net FAQ
- IP2Location LITE
- IP2Location.io pricing
50,000 free IP lookups a month
No credit card. City, timezone, network and proxy flags, with a confidence score for the city.