VPNs are useful for preserving your online privacy, but Netflix does its best to block subscribers who use them. These are the best VPNs that work with Netflix in the US right now.
In the summer of 2021, Netflix reportedly began cracking down on customers using VPNs to stream movies and shows from Netflix. We went back to our list of best VPNs for streaming video online and tested them to see which ones were still letting the content flow. How Did We Compile This List? For our testing, we drew from the list of products from the services previously featured in this roundup, our list of the best VPN services, and our list of VPNs we’d tested for unblocking overseas Netflix content. In mid August of 2021, we installed and tested each service. We looked only at whether a US-based customer could connect to a US-based VPN server and still successfully stream Netflix content. If you want to view Netflix content that’s available in other countries, we have a separate article for you. All the testing for this story was done from Max Eddy’s home in New York City. That means we were starting from a residential IP address using a normal internet connection. In most cases, the VPN client software connected to a VPN server in the New York City area, but we frequently looked to use different IP addresses and locations in our testing. Each service got five attempts. We tried to obtain a different IP address for each attempt, either by selecting a different server or using a different VPN server location. Some products, such as TunnelBear VPN, don’t let you select specific servers and only let you choose servers at the country level. In these cases, we toggled the VPN connection on and off to try and force a fresh connection. For a VPN to make it on this list, we had to be able to view US Netflix normally while the VPN was running. In short, there should have been no difference viewing Netflix with or without the VPN. The services that achieved this goal are listed above and at the bottom of this article. You can see the full breakdown of results in the chart below. Our results show the best result for each service. That means that some of the services we list as unblocked were functional at least once, but may have been blocked on other attempts. Note that these VPN services worked with Netflix when we last tested them, but that functionality is subject to change at a moment’s notice. The services here may stop working with Netflix one day, and then start working again the next (or vice-versa). If streaming Netflix is your primary VPN concern, don’t sign up for a yearlong subscription to a VPN service. Instead, you should go with a month-to-month account. This will give you the flexibility to cancel your plan, should you find that Netflix has blocked your VPN of choice. While it’s convenient when a VPN works with Netflix, it’s not how we judge the best VPNs. We look at these as privacy products first, and are more concerned with the features each service provides and the steps they take to protect your privacy. Even if they didn’t all work with Netflix this time, we strongly recommend all of our Editors’ Choice winners: ProtonVPN, which did work with Netflix; and IVPN, MullvadVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark VPN, and TunnelBear VPN, which didn’t. Blocked, Open, and Limited A few years ago, testing VPN compatibility with Netflix was a fairly straightforward affair. Netflix either streamed video without complaint or it kicked up an error message. Frequently, Netflix was able to tailor the message to VPN users, suggesting that they switch off their VPN or proxy connection. Last year, a weird, third state appeared. Instead of showing all the content for a region, Netflix would display a smaller subset of content. All of these would stream without incident. This was mostly Netflix Originals programming, like She-Ra: Princesses of Power but also included some licensed content not produced by Netflix, such as 2019’s Uncut Gems. We previously indicated this state on charts as Netflix Originals but now refer to it as Limited, which more accurately reflects the situation. In some ways, the Limited library is a good thing for customers. When you use a VPN, you’re not entirely cut off from the content you’re paying Netflix to see. It also seems like an admission on Netflix’s part that it cannot entirely stop customers from using VPNs. It can be hard to tell which state you’re in. A good rule of thumb is to look at the My List section and compare what appears with and without the VPN. If it’s different, you’re probably in Limited mode. Note that Limited mode does not guarantee you’ll be able to stream content. In some cases, we found we were blocked from viewing content when presented with the Limited selection of shows and movies.
