---
title: "Residential proxy"
url: https://proxy.wiki/glossary/residential-proxy/
type: Glossary Term
author: "proxy.wiki editorial"
published: 2026-08-19
updated: 2026-08-29
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.

## How the four categories compare

The categories differ on who owns the address, not on the protocol. Everything else follows from that one fact.

| Category | Address registered to | Usual billing | Typical scrutiny |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Datacenter](/glossary/datacenter-proxy/) | A hosting company | Per address | Highest |
| [ISP](/glossary/isp-proxy/) | A consumer ISP, hosted in a datacentre | Per address | Moderate |
| Residential | A consumer ISP, on a real line | Per gigabyte | Low |
| [Mobile](/glossary/mobile-proxy/) | A mobile carrier | Per gigabyte or per port | Lowest |

No figures appear in that table on purpose. Scrutiny varies by target and changes over time, so any number we printed would be wrong somewhere.

## Questions worth asking before you buy

The category tells you little about a specific provider. These questions separate them.

- **How is consent obtained from the people whose addresses you use?** Ask for the wording shown to them, not a policy summary.

- **Is the address held for the length of a session, or can it change mid-request?** This decides whether [sticky sessions](/glossary/sticky-session/) are usable.

- **What counts as billable traffic?** Failed requests and response headers often do. See [bandwidth billing](/glossary/bandwidth-billing/).

- **How is a country or city selected, and what happens when the pool cannot satisfy it?** Silent widening is common.

## Frequently asked questions

### Are residential proxies legal?

Using one is lawful in most jurisdictions. What you do through it is judged separately, under the site's terms, computer-misuse law and data-protection law. The sourcing of the addresses is a distinct question, and it is the one worth asking a provider about directly.

### Why is residential traffic billed per gigabyte instead of per address?

Because the provider does not own the addresses. It pays for access to a shifting set of consumer lines, so its cost tracks traffic rather than inventory. Per-address billing appears where the provider controls the address, as with ISP and datacenter proxies.

### How do I know the address I received is really residential?

Check which network the address belongs to through its ASN, then check whether that network is registered to a consumer ISP or a hosting company. The category is a property of the registration, so it is verifiable rather than something to take on trust.

## Sources

1. [RFC 6793: four-octet AS numbers, the identifiers behind network classification](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6793.html)