---
title: "Network Load Balancer now supports IPv6"
date: 2026-09-24
tags: ["New","Compute","Networking","NLB"]
url: https://changelog.exoscale.com/network-load-balancer-ipv6/
---
# Network Load Balancer now supports IPv6

Network Load Balancers now support IPv6. You can create an IPv6 Network Load Balancer in the [Exoscale Portal](https://portal.exoscale.com/login?next=%2Fcompute%2Fload-balancers%2Fadd%3F) or with the Exoscale CLI.

![Selecting IPv6 as the address family when creating a Network Load Balancer in the Exoscale Portal](network-load-balancer-ipv6-image-01.png)

An IPv6 Network Load Balancer gets a public IPv6 address and distributes TCP and UDP traffic across the instances in your Instance Pools, just like an IPv4 Network Load Balancer.

## Why use it

- **Lower cost:** Elastic IPv6 addresses are free, so you only pay the load balancer fee. An IPv6 Network Load Balancer costs **EUR/CHF/USD 0.02083 per hour**, about 40% less than the IPv4 version. Check the [pricing page](https://www.exoscale.com/pricing/) for details.
- **Reach IPv6 users directly:** Serve users on IPv6-only and IPv6-first networks, natively and without translation layers.
- **Go fully IPv6:** Your instances already get a free public IPv6 address. Now the load balancer in front of them can be IPv6 too.
- **Nothing to give up:** Same health checks, load balancing strategies and 200 service limit as an IPv4 Network Load Balancer.

## Before you start

The target Instance Pool must have IPv6 enabled (dual-stack). Instance Pools are IPv4 only by default, so set public IP assignment to dual-stack. Instances without an IPv6 address won't receive traffic.

[Learn more about Network Load Balancers →](https://community.exoscale.com/product/networking/nlb/)