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The State of IPv6 in 2026: Still Only 23.76% of Domains
Published 2026-06-29
Figures as of 2026-06-29 · methodology v7. Aggregate census data: presence of an AAAA (IPv6) record, across 261 million graded domains. See how we grade.
IPv6 has been “the future of the internet” for twenty years, and the future is still a minority: only 23.76% of domains have an IPv6 (AAAA) record. The other 76.24% are reachable over IPv4 only. Despite IPv4 address exhaustion, carrier-grade NAT, and a long-running industry push, most of the web has simply never turned IPv6 on at the domain level.
How much of the web is on IPv6?
As of 2026-06-29, across 261 million domains:
- 23.76% publish an AAAA record (reachable over IPv6).
- 76.24% are IPv4-only.
That’s a far cry from the ~40%+ IPv6 traffic figures the big content networks report — because those are dominated by a handful of giant IPv6-enabled platforms. Measured across the long tail of all domains, adoption is much thinner: the average business domain is still IPv4-only.
IPv6 adoption varies widely by country
IPv6 is driven largely by ISPs and hosting markets, so national endings differ sharply. Share of domains with an AAAA record, as of 2026-06-29:
| Country (ending) | IPv6 adoption |
|---|---|
| France (.fr) | 41.44% |
| Germany (.de) | 35.67% |
| Brazil (.br) | 32.78% |
| China (.cn) | 30.54% |
| India (.in) | 26.70% |
| United States (.us) | 16.52% |
Even the leaders sit well below half — and the global average across all domains is 23.76%.
Why adoption stays low
- It works without it. IPv4 plus NAT keeps functioning, so there’s no forcing event for most site owners — the classic chicken-and-egg that has dogged IPv6 for two decades.
- It’s someone else’s job. IPv6 usually depends on the hosting provider or CDN enabling it; the domain owner rarely thinks about it.
- No visible penalty. Unlike a missing certificate, being IPv4-only produces no warning and no obvious downside today — so it stays at the bottom of the to-do list.
For most small businesses IPv6 isn’t urgent — but it is a quiet marker of how modern your hosting is, and the gap shows how slowly even well-publicised internet upgrades actually propagate across the whole web.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of websites support IPv6? At the domain level, 23.76% publish an AAAA record as of 2026-06-29. Traffic-weighted figures from large platforms are higher, but across all domains adoption is a minority.
What is an AAAA record? The DNS record that points a domain to an IPv6 address (the IPv6 equivalent of an A record). Without one, a domain is reachable only over IPv4.
Do I need IPv6 for my website? It’s not urgent for most sites — IPv4 still works everywhere — but enabling it is usually a free toggle at your host and future-proofs your domain.
Which countries lead on IPv6? Adoption is highest where ISPs and hosts have pushed it; among major national endings, 41.44% (.fr) and 35.67% (.de) lead this sample, while 16.52% (.us) trails.
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