State of RIPE ASNs 2026: Registration Data at Mid-Year
How many ASNs are there in the RIPE region in 2026? As of 12 July 2026, the RIPE NCC registry lists 39,583 active Autonomous System Numbers. Registrations are accelerating: 1,479 of the ASNs assigned in the first half of 2026 are already more than the 862 still-held assignments from the first half of 2025, and 2026's year-to-date count of 1,557 is close to matching entire recent years. The United Kingdom leads new registrations, and IPv6 allocations have declined for a fifth consecutive year.
This is our own analysis of the public RIPE NCC delegation file. Numbers, tables and the honest caveats are below; anyone can reproduce them (see the methodology section).
ASN registrations by year
Active ASNs in today's registry, grouped by their original assignment year:
| Year | ASNs assigned (still active) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 1,746 |
| 2019 | 1,876 |
| 2020 | 1,615 |
| 2021 | 1,650 |
| 2022 | 1,528 |
| 2023 | 1,597 |
| 2024 | 1,677 |
| 2025 | 1,952 |
| 2026 (to 12 July) | 1,557 |
One caveat matters here: this is a snapshot of the current registry, so each year's figure counts only assignments that are still held today. Older cohorts have had more time to shrink through returns and deregistrations, which flatters recent years in any comparison. Even reading conservatively, the direction is unambiguous: 2025 finished as the strongest cohort in the table, and 2026 is on pace to exceed it comfortably. Monthly assignments in 2026 have been remarkably steady: 209 in January, 248 in February, 243 in March, 280 in April, 243 in May, 256 in June.
The timing is notable. The RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 2026 introduced a recurring €50 per-ASN fee, and one of the community's open questions was whether per-resource pricing would suppress demand or trigger mass returns of unused ASNs. At mid-year, the registry shows the opposite: demand for new AS numbers is the strongest it has been in years.
Which countries register the most ASNs?
New registrations, first half of 2026 versus full-year 2025:
| Rank | 2026 H1 | 2025 (full year) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United Kingdom (209) | United Kingdom (215) |
| 2 | Germany (136) | Germany (168) |
| 3 | Russia (126) | Russia (156) |
| 4 | United States (104) | Turkey (117) |
| 5 | Turkey (95) | France (108) |
| 6 | France (58) | United States (93) |
| 7 | Netherlands (53) | Netherlands (73) |
| 8 | Hong Kong (43) | Iran (67) |
| 9 | China (42) | Poland (60) |
| 10 | Poland (41) | China (52) |
Two things stand out. The United Kingdom has already nearly matched its full 2025 total halfway through 2026. And the United States, Hong Kong and China placing high in a European registry reflects a structural trend: organizations outside the RIPE service region registering resources through RIPE-region sponsoring LIRs, drawn by the region's comparatively accessible process.
The all-time picture looks different. By total active ASNs, Russia leads with 5,745, followed by Germany (3,213), the United Kingdom (3,055), Poland (2,456) and Ukraine (2,015). France holds 1,856.
IPv6 allocations keep declining
Allocation records still active in the registry, by original allocation year:
| Year | IPv6 allocation records |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 1,241 |
| 2021 | 2,331 |
| 2022 | 1,184 |
| 2023 | 1,004 |
| 2024 | 958 |
| 2025 | 780 |
| 2026 (to 12 July) | 524 |
The 2021 spike coincides with the era of multiple LIR accounts per organization and the final years of IPv4 allocations from the waiting list, when opening an LIR account was partly an IPv4 acquisition strategy and each account typically picked up an IPv6 allocation alongside. The steady decline since then is consistent with LIR consolidation after the fee changes and with a maturing market in which most established operators already hold IPv6 space.
There is a story in the contrast: new ASNs are booming while new IPv6 allocations decline. More networks want their own routing identity, but fewer need their own top-level address allocation, which is exactly the gap that sub-allocated and leased address space fills. It is also visible in how new networks actually get addressed today: through their LIR or a sponsoring LIR rather than by becoming one.
What this means if you are getting an ASN
- Demand is not slowing, and the €50 per-ASN fee has visibly not deterred registrations. Costs and route options are covered in our ASN registration cost breakdown.
- The sponsoring LIR route is what most of these registrations use in practice, since direct RIPE NCC membership only pays off for organizations that need their own allocations. Published sponsor prices are compared in our ASN sponsorship price comparison.
- If you are starting from zero, the process itself is documented step by step in the complete ASN registration guide.
Methodology
Source: the RIPE NCC extended delegation file (delegated-ripencc-extended-latest, published at ftp.ripe.net/pub/stats/ripencc/), snapshot of 12 July 2026, 259,918 records. We counted records of type asn, ipv4 and ipv6 with status allocated or assigned, grouped by the assignment date and country code recorded in the file.
Because the file is a snapshot of current delegations, resources that were assigned and later returned do not appear. Yearly figures therefore mean "assignments from that year still active today," and comparisons between recent and older years should be read with that survivorship effect in mind. Country codes reflect the registrant's declared country, not necessarily where the network operates.
The source file is public; every figure in this report can be reproduced with a few lines of scripting. We plan to refresh this report as the year progresses.
Official References
- RIPE NCC delegation statistics: https://ftp.ripe.net/pub/stats/ripencc/
- RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 2026: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-848/
Data snapshot and facts checked 12 July 2026.