How to Install the PHP GeoIP Extension?

Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: PHP 8.1 and newer (MaxMind GeoIP2 / GeoLite2)

The old PHP geoip extension and the legacy GeoIP databases it read are discontinued: MaxMind stopped updating those databases in 2019. Use the GeoIP2 / GeoLite2 databases instead.

1. Get the database

1. Create a free MaxMind account, generate a licence key, and download GeoLite2-Country or GeoLite2-City (.mmdb file).
2. Keep it updated with MaxMind's geoipupdate tool (dnf install geoipupdate / apt install geoipupdate) and a weekly cron job.

2. Read it from PHP

The simplest way, which also works on shared hosting, is MaxMind's Composer library:

composer require geoip2/geoip2

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
$reader = new GeoIp2\Database\Reader('/home/user/geo/GeoLite2-Country.mmdb');
$record = $reader->country($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
echo $record->country->isoCode;     // e.g. IN

For more speed on a VPS, also install the C extension maxminddb from PECL; the library uses it automatically.

Tip: If your site is behind Cloudflare, the visitor's country is already sent in the CF-IPCountry header, so no database is needed for country checks.