Originally published on proxymint.
UK residential proxies route through British home broadband. How UK targeting works, why GB is the country code, which session fits and how to check the exit.
TL;DR
- A UK residential proxy exits from a British home connection. The address belongs to a consumer ISP network such as BT, Sky, Virgin Media or TalkTalk, so databases classify it as residential and place it in the UK.
- Lookups answer GB, not UK. GB is the ISO 3166-1 code for the United Kingdom, so configs, tests and filters should match on GB.
- Region and city matter for delivery, devolved rules and local search. UK consumer prices already include VAT, so a plain price check rarely needs more than a country exit.
- The IP is one UK signal of several. Europe/London with British Summer Time, an en-GB locale and DNS resolved on the proxy side have to match the exit.
Key takeaways
- Pick the level from the page. Use country for national pages, region when delivery or devolved rules change, and city only for local search, store stock or city ads.
- Match on GB. Normalise United Kingdom, UK and England labels to GB before comparing an exit with the order.
- Check exits in two databases first. Echo the IP, confirm a consumer ISP network and the city in two lookups, and confirm DNS resolves on the proxy side.
- Set Europe/London and en-GB per context. Never hardcode a +00:00 offset; it is wrong during British Summer Time.
- Use static ISP for a long-lived UK identity. A home device can go offline; one assigned UK ISP address holds for the whole term.
Read the full guide on proxymint, with the commands, tables and sources.
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