How to Check Your Proxy IP and Connectivity

Before you plug a proxy into a scraper or an app, check two things: that it accepts your credentials and which IP address the target sees.

One-line check with curl

curl -x socks5h://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT https://api.ipify.org
curl -x http://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT https://api.ipify.org

The output is the exit IP. Compare it with your own IP (curl https://api.ipify.org without -x) — they must differ.

Add -v to see the proxy handshake and -w "%{time_total}\n" to measure the total time.

Python checker with latency

import time
import requests  # pip install "requests[socks]"

def check_proxy(proxy_url: str, timeout: float = 15) -> dict:
    proxies = {"http": proxy_url, "https": proxy_url}
    started = time.perf_counter()
    try:
        r = requests.get("https://api.ipify.org?format=json", proxies=proxies, timeout=timeout)
        r.raise_for_status()
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as exc:
        return {"ok": False, "error": type(exc).__name__}
    return {"ok": True, "ip": r.json()["ip"], "latency_ms": round((time.perf_counter() - started) * 1000)}

print(check_proxy("socks5h://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT"))

The result looks like {'ok': True, 'ip': '203.0.113.7', 'latency_ms': 699}; the latency includes the TLS handshake with the target.

Common errors

Symptom	Likely cause
curl: (97) / ConnectionError right away	Wrong login or password: the proxy rejected authentication
407 Proxy Authentication Required	HTTP proxy without credentials or with wrong ones
Connection timed out	Wrong host or port, a firewall, or the proxy is down
InvalidSchema: Missing dependencies for SOCKS support	Install requests[socks]
Works in curl, not in code	Only http is set in proxies — add https too

After an IP change on a mobile proxy

On mobile 4G/5G proxies the IP changes after you press “Change IP”. Wait a few seconds for the modem to reconnect and run the check again — the new IP also appears in “My proxies”.

Learn more about mobile proxies or the difference between SOCKS5 and HTTP.