Discord has two kinds of ban, and only one of them is tied to your IP address. A server ban comes from that server's moderators, and the Discord help center says server bans are based on IP addresses. It has no end date and lasts until a moderator lifts it. A ban from Discord itself, now called a suspension, sits on your account. It lasts up to one year, or for good if it is permanent, and you appeal it in the app. A third block hits bots: the Discord API shuts out an address for a while after too many failed requests.
We read the Discord help center, its safety pages and its developer docs on 10 October 2026. We also sent its API two requests from our own server, without any Discord account.
Which Discord ban do you have?
| What you see | Which block it is | Who set it | How long it lasts | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An invite to one server fails, and Discord lists Banned among its invite errors | A server ban, tied to your IP address | That server's moderators | Until a moderator removes it | Ask the server's moderators |
| Some features are gone, and Standing shows a violation | A violation on your account | Discord | Most expire after 90 days | Wait, or appeal the violation |
| The app shows a suspension notice | A suspension of your account | Discord | Up to one year, or never if permanent | Appeal in the app |
| Your bot gets 429 with "You are being blocked from accessing our API temporarily" | A restriction on your bot's address | The Discord API, automatically | Temporary, with no length published | Fix the errors, check shared hosting |
Only the first and the last rows are tied to an address. The two rows in the middle follow your account wherever you connect from.
Are Discord server bans IP-based?
Yes, by Discord's own account. Its help article on invalid invites says: "Server bans are based on IP addresses." The same article tells a banned user to ask the server's admins to lift the ban in their Server Settings.
The ban API in the Discord docs shows how long such a ban lasts. Creating a ban takes one setting: how much of the user's old messages to delete, up to seven days' worth. It has no end date. The ban lasts until someone with the Ban Members permission removes it.
Because the ban follows the address, it can reach people who share it. A home network usually reaches the internet through one public address (RFC 3022). A ban set for one person in the house can then stop others on the same connection. RFC 6269 describes the same side effect for any service that blocks a shared address. A post on the Discord support forum from March 2024 makes the same complaint about shared and changing addresses.
Can Discord IP ban your account?
Discord describes its own enforcement in terms of accounts. Its Warning System article sorts every account into one of five standings: All good, Limited, Very limited, At risk and Suspended. The article does not mention IP addresses once. Whether Discord also blocks addresses behind the scenes, its pages do not say. What they do say is how long each step lasts.
How long does a Discord ban last?
| Block | How long, in Discord's own words |
|---|---|
| Server ban | No end date: it lasts until a moderator removes it |
| Lost features after a violation | "a few hours", or "a few days or up to one year" if repeated or severe |
| A violation on your standing | "Most violations expire after 90 days" |
| Temporary suspension | "up to 1 year", and the account and username are kept |
| Permanent suspension, formerly a ban | Does not expire, with a grace period to appeal |
| API restriction on a bot's address | Temporary, and Discord publishes no length |
A temporary suspension ends on its own, and the account comes back at the end. A permanent one costs the account, and after the grace period its username becomes free again.
Why is my bot blocked from the Discord API?
Discord limits each bot to 50 requests per second. Without a token, that limit applies to the IP address. A second limit counts errors by address. An IP that makes 10,000 invalid requests in 10 minutes is "automatically and temporarily restricted" from the API. An invalid request is any answer with status 401, 403 or 429. The Discord docs call these blocks Cloudflare bans.
On shared hosting, the error count is shared as well. In June 2022 a developer reported the block on a small bot that made few requests. A contributor to the Discord docs replied that the host ran shared hosting. Someone else on the same address had been blocked first.
We sent the Discord API two requests without a token on 10 October 2026. The /gateway route answered 200. The /users/@me route answered 401 with "401: Unauthorized". Neither answer carried a rate-limit header. Yet by the definition in the docs, that 401 counted as one invalid request against our server's address.
How do I fix a Discord ban?
Match the fix to the row of the first table. A fix for one kind of ban does nothing for the others.
A server ban: ask the moderators
The Discord help center advises you to contact the server's admins and ask them to lift the ban. Bans are listed in their Server Settings, and anyone there with the Ban Members permission can remove one. If the ban was meant for someone else on your connection, tell them so. For help beyond that, Discord points to its support form at dis.gd/contact.
A suspension or a violation: appeal in the app
Open User Settings, then My Account, then Standing. Select the violation and press Let us know. You cannot appeal your standing as a whole, only single violations. If the appeal is granted, Discord removes the violation and restores your standing. If it is denied, the violation stays until it expires, where it has an end date.
A blocked bot: stop the errors
Stop the bot and wait. When it runs again, retry only after the time in the Retry-After header or the retry_after field. Stop sending requests with a token that no longer works, since each 401 counts. If the bot shares hosting with other bots, its address shares their errors as well. Discord asks bots that hit the restriction in normal use to contact it at dis.gd/rate-limit.
When Discord will not load at all
A connection error is not a ban. The Discord help center says Discord does not work with proxies and asks you to disable them. If the app fails everywhere, look for a proxy or VPN setting before you assume a ban. Our guide on using a proxy with Discord explains why voice breaks behind one.
If none of that works
A server ban stands for as long as the moderators keep it, because the ban has no end date. If you still cannot join after they lift it, Discord offers its support team at dis.gd/contact. For a suspension, a denied appeal leaves the violation on your account until it expires. A bot that keeps getting blocked in normal use can ask Discord, through dis.gd/rate-limit, whether it qualifies for a higher limit.
Can a VPN or a new account get around a Discord ban?
Not within Discord's rules. The Community Guidelines list "ban or block evasion" as a form of harassment. Rule 19 says not to evade permanent Discord-level enforcement, which includes "creating new or using existing accounts". That is why this page lists no ways around a ban. The routes Discord offers are the moderators for a server ban and the appeal for a suspension.
When does an address of your own help on Discord?
| Situation | Does an address used only by you help? |
|---|---|
| Your bot shares hosting, and other bots' errors count against its address | Yes. Only your bot's own errors count against it |
| A server ban meant for someone else on your connection | Ask the moderators first. They can remove it from their bans list |
| A server ban on your own account | No. Getting around it is ban evasion under Discord's rules |
| A suspension or a violation | No. It sits on your account, so appeal it in the app |
| Your own bot's error loop | No. A new address meets the same limit |
An address only your bot uses is the honest fix for the first row. That can be hosting with its own IP. It can also be a dedicated static IP for the bot's API calls, such as our ISP proxies. The Discord app itself is a different case, since Discord says it does not work with proxies. For accounts, read our guide to proxies for Discord before you change anything.
What this page could not check
We set off no ban and used no Discord account, so nothing here comes from inside a ban. Discord does not publish whether its own suspensions also block addresses, and the Warning System does not mention them. It does not publish how long an API restriction lasts, either. The statement that server bans are based on IP addresses comes from a help article last edited on 22 August 2023. How Discord matches an address to a server ban is not documented. Our own test was two requests on one day. Discord changes these pages and limits without notice, so we will read every source here again by 10 January 2027.
Sources
- Discord Support, "Invalid Invite Links", last edited 22 August 2023: support.discord.com.
- Discord Support, "Discord Warning System", last edited 5 June 2026: support.discord.com.
- Discord Safety Library, "How You Can Appeal Our Actions", 16 February 2024: discord.com/safety.
- Discord, Community Guidelines, effective 29 September 2025: discord.com/guidelines.
- Discord Developer Documentation, "Rate Limits", changed 10 February 2026: discord.com/developers.
- Discord Developer Documentation, Guild resource, "Create Guild Ban" and "Remove Guild Ban", changed 30 September 2026: discord.com/developers.
- Discord Support, "Troubleshooting Console Log Errors", last edited 21 June 2023: support.discord.com.
- RFC 6269, Issues with IP Address Sharing, section 13.1, June 2011: rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6269.
- RFC 3022, Traditional IP Network Address Translator (NAT), IETF, January 2001: rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3022.
- Questions people asked: Discord Support community posts of 8 July 2020 and 18 March 2024, and issue 5030 on the Discord docs repository, 5 June 2022.
- Our own measurement: two requests to the Discord API from our server, 10 October 2026, logged in the research folder for this page.
