How long is a typical DHCP Lease Time?

A typical DHCP lease time is often set to 24 hours, making this choice a common practice in many network configurations. This duration allows devices to maintain a stable IP address assignment while also providing the flexibility to reassign addresses as devices join and leave the network. A 24-hour lease period strikes a balance between minimizing interruptions for users, who may want to keep their devices connected without frequent reconnections, and ensuring that IP addresses are efficiently managed within the network.

In practice, DHCP administrators may adjust the lease time based on the specific needs of the network, such as the number of devices that frequently connect or disconnect. By having a lease time of 24 hours, it helps prevent potential issues that could arise from extremely short lease times, such as IP address exhaustion, especially in environments with many transient devices.

The other choices for lease times, while used in some scenarios, are typically not the default setting for many standard networks—making 24 hours a broadly accepted norm.