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What NAT type am I? And why your console disagrees

NAT type is one of the few networking terms gamers actually use, and one of the most confusing, partly because different devices measure different things and call the results by the same names.

Last updated 29 August 2026

What NAT is doing

You have one public address and many devices. Your router hands out private addresses internally and translates between them — Network Address Translation. When a reply comes back, it has to work out which device asked.

How it does that bookkeeping decides whether two machines elsewhere on the internet can connect to each other directly, which is what peer-to-peer games, voice chat and file transfer all want to do.

The two behaviours that matter

One address for everyone (endpoint-independent mapping): every server you contact sees your connection arriving from the same public address and port. Two machines can therefore tell each other where to send, and a direct connection can be arranged. This is what you want.

A new address per destination (symmetric NAT): your router allocates a different public port for each destination. Neither side can predict what the other will see, so a direct connection cannot be negotiated and traffic must go through a relay instead — which adds delay.

Why your console says something different

This is the part that causes arguments. A console can ask the router to open a specific port for it, using UPnP or NAT-PMP. A web page cannot — browsers deliberately do not allow it.

So a console can quite correctly report Open or Type 1 on a network where a browser-based test sees symmetric NAT. Both measurements are right; they are measuring different things. If your games say Open, believe them, not a website.

Carrier-grade NAT

Separately from all of this, your provider may be sharing one public address between many customers. This is called CGNAT, and it is increasingly common on fixed lines and effectively universal on mobile networks — there were never enough IPv4 addresses for the number of phones.

Behind CGNAT you cannot forward a port, host anything, or be reached from outside. Everything else — browsing, streaming, calls, and the great majority of games — works normally. On mobile it is not a fault and there is no setting that changes it. On a fixed line it is worth asking your provider whether a public address is available, sometimes at no cost.

When to actually do something

1. If your games and calls work, do nothing. This is a description of your router, not a fault.
2. If you genuinely have trouble — party chat failing, being placed in other people's sessions — turn UPnP on in the router settings, often under Advanced, NAT or Gaming, then restart the game.
3. If UPnP is already on and it is still bad, check whether you are behind carrier-grade NAT. If you are, no router setting will fix it and the conversation is with your provider.
4. Forwarding ports by hand is a last resort, and it is worth doing only for one specific game that documents which ports it needs.