CLOUDFLARE has announced Custom Regions as the next evolution of its Regional Services, launched on 18 March 2026. The update expands pre-defined regions and adds the ability for customers to define their own geographical boundaries for traffic processing, with Custom Regions allowing precise control over which locations constitute a region.
In addition to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), IRAP (Australian compliance) and ISMAP (Japanese compliance) regional options, the total number of regions available now reaches 35. Custom Regions work by letting customers specify region membership using an expression, most commonly based on the country_code ISO code, and by ensuring TLS termination and Layer 7 processing occur only inside the chosen region while routing and DDoS protection continue to leverage Cloudflare’s global network.
Use cases highlighted include regionalising AI inference, launching hyper-targeted promotions, scaling government operations, and mirroring corporate structures such as regional business units like EMEA, MENA or APAC.