---
title: "Exit node"
url: https://proxy.wiki/glossary/exit-node/
type: Glossary Term
author: "proxy.wiki editorial"
published: 2026-08-19
updated: 2026-08-19
site: proxy.wiki
topics: ["Proxy fundamentals"]
license: CC BY 4.0 — quote freely with attribution to https://proxy.wiki/
---

# Exit node

> The final address in a proxy chain — the one the destination actually sees and records.

**The exit node is the last hop before the destination.** Its address is what the target server logs, what geolocation databases resolve, and what any block ultimately applies to.

## Why the distinction matters

You connect to a provider’s gateway, but the gateway is not what the destination sees. Between them may be several internal hops. When a provider advertises a country, they mean the exit node is in that country — the gateway you dial may be somewhere else entirely.

## Checking it

The only reliable way to know your exit address is to ask a service that echoes it back. That is exactly what a proxy checker does: it opens a real connection through your proxy and reports the address the far end observed.

## One request is one sample

Checking once tells you about that exit node at that moment. On a [rotating](/glossary/rotating-proxy/) endpoint the next request may leave from somewhere else entirely, so a single check is a diagnostic, not a measurement of the pool.