---
title: "Residential proxy"
url: https://proxy.wiki/glossary/residential-proxy/
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/
---

# Residential proxy

> A proxy whose exit address belongs to a consumer ISP, so the traffic appears to come from an ordinary home connection.

**A residential proxy routes your request through an address assigned by a consumer internet provider.** To the destination the traffic looks like it came from a household broadband or fibre line rather than a server.

## Why it is treated differently

Filtering systems classify addresses partly by the network that owns them, identified through the [ASN](/glossary/asn/). Ranges registered to consumer ISPs carry far less suspicion than ranges registered to hosting companies, because real customers sit behind them and blocking one can affect many innocent users.

## Trade-offs

- **Slower and less predictable** than [datacenter proxies](/glossary/datacenter-proxy/), because the path traverses a real consumer line.

- **Usually billed by traffic**, per gigabyte, rather than per address.

- **Widest quality spread** of any category. Two providers quoting a similar price can behave very differently.

## Sourcing

Addresses are obtained through consented peer networks, SDKs bundled into applications, or partnerships with ISPs. Sourcing practice varies considerably between providers and is worth asking about directly.

## Commonly confused with

An [ISP proxy](/glossary/isp-proxy/) is registered to a consumer ISP but hosted in a datacentre — it combines residential registration with datacentre performance, and is billed per address.