Technology for stateless forwarding of packets in an ICN is disclosed. Content routers modify a dynamic filter in an interest packet. In one aspect, a content router extracts a dynamic filter from an interest packet received on an ingress port and combines the dynamic filter with a local filter associated with the ingress port. The packet filter and the local filter may be combined without losing information in the packet filter or the local filter. A new filter may be inserted into the interest packet based on the combined packet filter and local filter. The interest packet having the new filter may be forwarded on an egress port. The data packet that returns the content object for the interest packet may be forwarded statelessly based on the dynamic filter. Thus, the data packet may be forwarded without use of a pending interest table (PIT).