How Long Does It Take to Lease IPv4? 2026 Timeline

The sales page says “LOA in hours.” The change window says Friday. Somewhere between those two statements is the actual answer to how long it takes to turn a signed lease into globally routed IPv4 space. Here is the realistic 2026 timeline, broken into the five steps that actually consume the clock, with the lead times that each one adds.

What is the fastest realistic time from contract to routed IPv4?

If your upstream relationship is already in place and your router config is ready, a flat-rate lessor with automated provisioning can take you from signup to announced prefix in a single working day. ip4.market publishes an average LOA delivery time of under 4 hours and a three-step process: browse and select, register and order, receive LOA and deploy. The rest of the day is yours: filter policy on the upstream side, then the BGP session.

Why is the LOA the critical path document?

Every party in the chain trusts the paper, not the phone call. The Letter of Authorization is what your upstream provider’s provisioning team needs before they will accept a route announcement for a prefix registered to someone else. As covered in the ip4.market LOA guide, the document must be on the resource holder’s letterhead, name the exact prefixes, and name the ASNs authorized to originate them. A missing or malformed LOA is the single most common cause of a stuck lease: the block is paid for, the session is up, and the transit provider simply filters your announcement until the paperwork is right. One detail worth checking before you sign: whether the lessor issues ROAs for your ASN as part of the package or leaves RPKI as your problem. Without a valid ROA, more and more upstreams will reject the route outright under RPKI origin validation.

What slows the timeline down in practice?

Three things, and none of them are the lessor. First, upstream process: some transit providers still validate LOAs manually during business hours only, which turns a same-day deployment into a next-business-day one if your request lands Friday afternoon. Second, IRR objects: if your ASN has stale route objects in an IRR database, the upstream’s filtering script may reject the prefix until the object is updated, which can take another day if the maintainer is a third party. Third, reputation checks on your side: if you skip pre-flight blocklist screening and discover a listing mid-deployment, the rollback and block swap can eat a full week. None of these show up in a sales page, and all of them are avoidable with a pre-signature checklist.

How does leasing compare to buying on the clock?

A purchase moves the timeline from days to weeks because the RIR transfer itself is the long pole: the registry reviews the request, verifies the seller’s authorization, and updates the registration. The buyer-side work (due diligence, escrow, paperwork) sits on top of that. Where a lease lands in a day, a purchase with clean paperwork at a cooperative RIR can take two to six weeks. For any project with a launch date, that difference is usually the whole argument.

What should you prepare before signing so deployment is same-day?

Four items. One: confirm your upstream accepts LOA-based announcements and ask what their exact validation SLA is, in writing. Two: have your router config staged, including the policy so the prefix originates only from the intended ASN. Three: ask the lessor explicitly whether RPKI ROA creation is included. Four: decide who monitors the announcement for the first 24 hours, because a route that drops a few hours after going live is a far cheaper fix than one discovered by a customer. A lessor with a published average LOA delivery time and a no-contract cancellation policy is betting that you will not need their hand-holding; meet them halfway by having yours in order.

Does block size or region change the timeline?

Not at any competent lessor. Because the provisioning work is per-order rather than per-address, a /22 takes no longer to issue than a /24 at a flat-rate operator: the LOA covers whichever prefix you ordered, and the ROA is the same one-object operation. Region matters even less on the lease side since there is no registry review at all; the RIR listed on the block affects who the WHOIS shows, not how fast you route. The only size-related variable worth asking about is whether very large leases (a /20 or bigger) get a named human at the lessor or the same self-service pipeline; at 4,096 addresses the answer still matters to some buyers.

FAQ

How long does it take to lease IPv4 addresses?

With an automated lessor and an upstream that processes LOAs same-day, contract to routed prefix takes hours, not days. ip4.market publishes average LOA delivery under 4 hours; BGP setup after that depends on your own upstream and router readiness. A realistic same-day outcome is common.

What is an LOA and why do I need one for leased IP space?

A Letter of Authorization is a signed document from the block holder naming your ASN and the prefixes you may announce. Upstream providers require it because the RIR registry still lists the lessor as the resource holder. Without it, your announcement looks like a route hijack and gets filtered.

Do I need RPKI ROA for leased IPv4 space?

Yes, in practice. RPKI origin validation is widely deployed among major transit providers, and a route without a valid ROA risks rejection. Ask the lessor whether ROA creation for your ASN is included in the lease. If it is not, treat that as a red flag.

How long does a BGP announcement take to propagate globally?

Once your session is up and upstream filters allow the prefix, global propagation typically takes 15 minutes to 2 hours. Routing tables converge fast; the slower variable is almost always the upstream’s filter update, not the Internet itself.

Is leasing IPv4 faster than buying it?

Yes, by a wide margin. A lease with automated provisioning completes in hours to a day. A purchase requires an RIR transfer review that typically takes two to six weeks even with clean paperwork, before escrow and due diligence time on top.

What documents should I have ready before signing an IPv4 lease?

Have your ASN details, upstream contact, and router config staged, and confirm your upstream’s LOA validation SLA. Ask the lessor whether RPKI ROAs are included. If you plan to announce through multiple upstreams, name all of them in the LOA request.