Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are powerful tools that can protect your privacy from government surveillance. This leads some to ask: are VPN services legal? Though most countries around the world allow VPN use, the answer may depend on what country you’re in.

Is it illegal to use a VPN?
VPNs are a thorn in the side of any government that relies heavily on online surveillance or censorship. That’s because a powerful VPN helps users evade both of those practices – by securing your traffic from governments and ISPs.

As a result, some governments demonize VPN services by claiming that they are used primarily for illegal activities. Others simply make virtual private network illegal. In both cases, however, the goal is the same – to prevent people from enjoying the free internet the way it was meant to be.

Focusing on the illegal activities for VPNs misses the point. VPNs have many more different positive uses than they have negative ones.

Here are some of the good things VPNs can be used for:

Staying secure when using public WiFi while you travel.
Maintaining online freedom and evading censorship when living in or visiting an oppressive state.
Accessing geo-restricted sites and services in other countries or those from back home when you’re living abroad.
Searching for information and communicating securely and privately when dealing with sensitive topics, like when journalists investigate corruption.
Working with sensitive trade secrets or other important data that must remain secured at all costs.
Browsing the internet while you want to remain private and secure.
Where are VPNs illegal?
VPN services are legal in most of the world, including Canada, the USA and the UK. In some countries. However, VPNs are only legal if they fulfill certain requirements that seriously compromise the security and privacy they provide. For the purposes of this list, we will consider VPNs illegal in a country if:

Using VPNs is explicitly forbidden for a significant portion or all of the country’s population;
Using a VPN is only legal if it meets government regulations that allow the government to regularly monitor users.
The growth of Virtual Private Networks as world-wide tools for security, privacy, and internet freedom is a relatively recent phenomenon, so many countries with repressive tendencies that have not yet passed any laws regulating their use may still plan to. One of the best places to monitor potential changing attitudes is Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net report.

We’ll update this list whenever we can. If the country you’re visiting or living in ranks low for internet freedom but isn’t featured on our list of anti-VPN countries, it may be worth doing a bit more research to figure out whether or not you’ll be able to use a VPN.

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