Understanding Edge Locations
Twilio operates a collection of DNS-addressable network edges around the world, called Edge Locations. Edge Locations provide the entry and exit points where your application's network traffic connects to Twilio's platform.
Your applications can connect to any of Twilio's public Edge Locations over the internet at no additional cost. Alternatively, you can connect to a private Edge Location for increased security and reliability. To learn more about using private Edge Locations, see the Twilio Interconnect product overview.
Twilio automatically selects the optimal Edge Location for your requests by using geo-aware DNS and CDN-backed routing. This improves latency and resilience by directing your application traffic through the nearest available Edge Location.
This guide covers:
- What types of connectivity are supported by Edge Locations
- How Edge Locations relate to Twilio Regions
- How automatic Edge Location selection works
- The proper hostname format to ensure optimal routing
Info
To see a complete list of available Edge Locations, see the reference page.
Action Required by April 28, 2026
We are making changes to the PRODUCT.REGION.twilio.com domain pattern. The following domains will stop working on April 28, 2026: api.ie1.twilio.com, api.au1.twilio.com, api.br1.twilio.com, api.de1.twilio.com, api.jp1.twilio.com, api.sg1.twilio.com, and api.us2.twilio.com.
Note: api.us1.twilio.com remains valid and will continue to work.
See the API Domain Migration Guide for migration instructions.
Your application connects to Twilio in order to use services provided by Twilio products. The following table shows a sample of service activities that require making a connection to Twilio:
| Activity | Connection type |
|---|---|
| Make a Twilio API request to send an SMS using Twilio Programmable Messaging | HTTPS |
| Initiate an outbound phone call from your PBX infrastructure via Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking | SIP |
| Connect to a Video Room from a mobile application that uses the Twilio Programmable Video SDK | Websocket |
To initiate any of these activities, your application needs to send data to a Twilio Region where the activity is ultimately processed.
Rather than connecting directly to a Twilio Region, your application sends data to a Twilio Region through an Edge Location: the client establishes a secure connection with an Edge Location, which then transmits data from the connection to the destination Region, where the data is ultimately processed to carry out the activity.
Info
Twilio's CDN automatically selects the optimal Edge Location for your requests.
The edge and region combination in the FQDN (e.g., dublin.ie1 in api.dublin.ie1.twilio.com) determines where your data is processed. However, for ingress routing, the CDN may route traffic through a different edge location based on your geographic location and network conditions.
For guaranteed ingress location control, use Interconnect.
Twilio's services use a CDN, and the CDN provider automatically determines the fastest ingress path based on DNS resolution and network conditions at the time of the request. This means DNS might resolve Twilio's API FQDN to IP addresses anywhere, and your traffic can enter Twilio's network through any available edge location. Twilio can't guarantee the location of the resolved IP address or the edge where the traffic will ingress. If you need a guaranteed ingress location or have requirements about your API traffic's path to Twilio, consider using Interconnect. With Interconnect, you can specify the exact ingress edge location to make sure all traffic goes there. You can also use Interconnect to set up a dedicated connection to Twilio that doesn't use the public internet.
To control where your data is processed, authenticated, and stored, use the appropriate hostname format for your target region.
For US processing:
*PRODUCT*.twilio.com
Examples: api.twilio.com, api.us1.twilio.com
For regional processing (Ireland or Australia):
*PRODUCT*.*EDGE_LOCATION*.*PROCESSING_REGION*.twilio.com
Examples: api.dublin.ie1.twilio.com, api.sydney.au1.twilio.com
The edge and region combination (e.g., dublin.ie1) determines where Twilio processes your request. The CDN optimizes the actual ingress path based on your geographic location.
Some Twilio services need to initiate outbound connections to your applications or infrastructure.
The following table shows a sample of activities which require Twilio to make an outbound connection:
| Activity | Connection type |
|---|---|
| Sending webhook callback requests to your application | HTTPS |
| Forwarding an incoming call to your PBX infrastructure using Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking | SIP |
| Connecting a call to a mobile application that uses the Twilio Programmable Voice SDK | Websocket |
The processing that initiates these outbound connections always occurs within a Twilio Region. However, from the perspective of your application, connections from Twilio always originate from an optimized Edge Location based on your geographic location.
To learn how to configure which Edge Location Twilio uses when connecting to your application, see our guide to configuring your application for Edge Locations.
From a pure client/server networking perspective, there are only two parties involved in connections between your application and Twilio: your application, and a Twilio server at an Edge Location. However, when considering the entire end-to-end data flow between your application and Twilio from a holistic system architecture point of view, there are actually three main components involved:
- Your application
- An Edge Location, which effectively acts as a reverse proxy server
- A Twilio Region that the Edge Location sends data to for processing
Your application only makes or receives network connections to and from the Edge Location; it never connects directly to a Twilio Region. However, it's important to remember that behind the scenes, data is also transmitted between the Edge Location and the target Region.
Thus, there are effectively two logical connection "legs" comprising an end-to-end data flow between your application and Twilio:
| Leg | Spans | Transport mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Outer | Client to Edge Location | Public internet (or private Interconnect) |
| Inner | Edge Location to destination Twilio Region | Twilio's internal network |
Learn how to use Edge Locations with: