How often is the MACLookup database updated?

There is no fixed schedule. The database is updated as soon as new information arrives from the two sources it is built from — the IEEE registration data and the Wireshark manufacturer database — rather than on a nightly or monthly cycle. A registration the IEEE publishes today appears here once that data reaches the build, and an existing record is rewritten when its registration changes.

Where the data comes from

Two registries, combined:

the IEEE Registration Authority data, which assigns address blocks and states the organization each one is registered to, along with the assignment type and the block's start and end addresses;
the Wireshark manufacturer database, which records manufacturer names for prefixes, including entries that do not come from an IEEE registration.

A record therefore has two possible origins, and they do not carry the same weight: an IEEE assignment is an allocation made to an organization, while a manufacturer entry is a contributed name. Where the two disagree, the registration data is the one that describes the allocation. The site states the same two sources on its home page.

Where to read the current update date

The date the database was last updated is shown on the home page, on the search page, and on each of the three download pages. It is a property of the database as a whole, so it is not repeated on a single address or vendor result page.

The difference between the two dates

A result carries a date of its own. 00:1A:2B resolves to Ayecom Technology Co., Ltd. with the record dated 2015-11-17, while 38:B1:4E:6 resolves to Universal Robots A/S with the record dated 2026-03-04. That is when the registration itself last changed, not when the database was rebuilt. A record can be years old and still current: an assignment that has not been amended keeps its original date.

What a missing registration means

Because the data arrives from outside, a very recent registration can be absent for a while, and an address that belongs to no registered block never appears at all. Both cases return the same empty result, and why a lookup returns no vendor tells them apart. To keep a copy of the data locally instead of querying, see the database download.

Sources and review

Last reviewed: 2026-09-16. Technical claims on this page follow the primary sources below; operating-system interfaces change between releases, so check them against your own device version.