Systems and methods for a VRF-aware socket are provided. According to one embodiment, a user-space application of a network device, maintaining a virtual routing table for each of multiple VRF domains, creates a VRF-aware listening socket. The socket includes information regarding: (i) which of the virtual routing tables is to be used to look up routing or forwarding information for outgoing traffic; (ii) the VRF domain(s) from which the socket is able to receive incoming traffic; and/or (iii) the last VRF domain from which the socket read data. The socket is configured to be a super-VRF listening socket capable of receiving incoming traffic from all VRF domains by setting its VRF domain(s) to a wildcard value. The super-VRF listening socket then receives from a client device associated with a first VRF domain of the multiple VRF domains a request on behalf of the user-space application.