Not necessarily. Many have their RIPE registrations through an existing, “sponsoring” LIR. They’re not paying that 1800 Euro, the LIR is.
A single AS resource and a single PI assignment cost more than the ARIN fee.
Are you sure? For RIPE I see a 50 ASN plus 75 euro PI fee. ARIN is $275. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong.
It’s cheaper as a hobbyist to use a RIPE LIR. Even in the US. That’s what I’ve been doing for years.
afaik that's +VAT and also for LIRs only. LIRs apply markup, see https://www.lir.services/lir-sponsoring/ they charge 200€ per resource, so ASN + PI would be at last 400€/year that's way above the price of ARIN and you have a middleman.
You must have a sponsoring LIR for your resources or become a LIR yourself. The only exception is LEGACY resources (IPv4, no ASN) but that's a different story.
There are more competitive LIRs out there. Example: https://lagrange.cloud/products/lir
It’s also cheaper for me because I have legacy ARIN space. All I really needed was an ASN. The LIR gives me some PA v6 space for cheap, too.
- ARIN 2026 PDF: https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/images/2026feeschedule.p...
- RIPE 2026 : https://www.ripe.net/membership/payment/
Enthusiasts, trainees and small orgs are paying a lot more with RIPE.