Best Free VPN for India in 2026: Safe Options Compared

No trustworthy free VPN offers an Indian server, and the reason is a rule India introduced in 2022. VPN companies with servers in the country were ordered to keep records of their users, so most reputable VPNs moved those servers abroad, and none of the free plans added Indian servers of their own.

That matters because people in India want a free VPN for two different jobs. On a Jio or Airtel connection, a VPN hides the sites you visit from your mobile operator and unblocks sites that India blocks.

Abroad, it does the reverse: it lends your laptop an Indian IP address, so JioHotstar and your bank treat you as if you were home. The honest free VPNs handle the first job well. The second is a different story, although a paid VPN can still cost nothing for a month.

Free VPNs for India Compared

Free plans don’t include Indian servers. NordVPN has them on every plan, and Proton VPN and Windscribe have them on paid plans only.

VPN	Indian IP address	Data limit	Devices at once	Average speed loss	JioHotstar
NordVPN	Yes (Mumbai), with a 30-day refund	None	10	7.8% (NordLynx)	Unblocked
Proton VPN	VPN Plus only	None, on free and paid plans	10 paid, 1 free	10.2% paid, 19.3% free	Unblocked on VPN Plus
Windscribe	Paid plan only	10 GB with email, 2 GB without	Unlimited	10.0% (free)	Not on the free plan
PrivadoVPN	Not on the free plan	10 GB, then 1 Mbps	1	9.5% (free)	Not on the free plan
Hide.me	Not on the free plan	None	1	30.5% (free)	Not on the free plan

The Best Free VPN for India in 2026

1. NordVPN: Best for Indian Servers (Free for 30 Days)

NordVPN has no free plan. Its 30-day money-back guarantee means a month of use costs nothing if you cancel in time, and Android owners have a three-day NordVPN trial in the Play Store. In exchange, you receive what no free VPN offers: servers in Mumbai.

On those Mumbai servers, the speed loss in our tests was 10.2%, and JioHotstar worked as it does in India, along with the US and Japanese Netflix catalogs on other servers. In India, its obfuscated servers disguise VPN traffic as normal web browsing, which helps on office and college Wi-Fi that blocks VPN connections.

The Complete and Prime plans add next-gen antivirus, which blocks malicious sites and ads, and our ranking of VPNs that block ads shows how it compares. Mark the refund deadline in your calendar if it’s only for a trip.

The Basic plan, if you keep the subscription, works out to about $3.50 a month when billed for two years, so you still don’t end up spending a fortune.

Try NordVPN in India

2. Proton VPN: Best for Privacy, With a Free Plan Behind It

VPN Plus, Proton VPN’s paid tier, has Indian servers that unblocked JioHotstar in our tests. It costs about $3 a month when you commit to two years, and you can cancel for your money back during the first 30 days.

Its Indian server was the slowest of the three paid VPNs we tested there, with a 45.3% speed loss. Even so, that left enough bandwidth for an HD cricket stream, and reconnecting usually moves you to a less busy Indian server. If paying is off the table, we’d start with Proton VPN’s free tier in India.

It shows no ads and sets no data cap, and its audited no-logs policy covers free accounts too. Its Stealth protocol, which makes VPN traffic look like ordinary browsing, comes with free accounts as well. Location is the limit.

The free app connects you to one of 10 countries, with Singapore and Japan the closest to India, and you can’t choose an Indian server. It doesn’t work with streaming services either, and switching servers repeatedly triggers a wait before the next change.

Use Proton VPN for Free in India

3. Windscribe: Best Free VPN for Phones in India

Windscribe is the free VPN we’d put on a phone in India. Confirm an email address, and the free plan allows 10 GB a month, and every phone and laptop in the family can use the same account at once. The speed loss on its free servers was 10.0%, about what a paid VPN costs you.

Hong Kong is the closest of its ten free countries to India. Stealth and WStunnel, two protocols that make a VPN connection look like regular HTTPS browsing, come with the free plan. They’re why Windscribe is also among the free VPNs that still connect in China.

On the streaming side, its free servers unblocked the US, Canadian, and Japanese Netflix catalogs, though not JioHotstar. Its 10 GB allowance is the drawback, since an evening of HD video uses a large share of it.

Save Windscribe for foreign TV channels and trips, and leave daily browsing to a free VPN with no cap.

4. PrivadoVPN: Best Free VPN for a Windows PC

PrivadoVPN had the quickest free plan we tested, losing 9.5% of our speed, and it unblocked BBC iPlayer from abroad, Netflix US, and Channel 4. Its free locations span the Americas and Europe, so it suits foreign catalogs but can’t offer an Indian IP address.

Scramble, its obfuscation option, is included on the free plan. India removed PrivadoVPN from Google Play and the App Store in January 2025, so it’s no longer a phone option there. On Windows, you install it from PrivadoVPN’s own website, which is where that version comes from anyway.

That makes it our choice for a free VPN on a PC in India. Once the 10 GB allowance is gone, PrivadoVPN moves you to slow emergency servers, which handle chat and email. The allowance isn’t topped up automatically, so reclaim it in the app at the start of every month.

5. Hide.me: Best for Uncapped Browsing on a Computer

Hide.me puts no data cap on its free plan and includes settings other free VPNs keep for subscribers. Split tunneling lets chosen apps bypass the VPN, so UPI and banking apps keep your Indian connection while the browser remains encrypted.

Its kill switch blocks traffic whenever the VPN connection fails, and its SoftEther protocol helps on networks that block standard VPN connections. Hide.me was the first VPN removed from India’s Play Store and App Store in November 2024, so like PrivadoVPN, it’s a computer option for those in India.

It was also the slowest free plan we tested, with a 30.5% speed loss, and its free locations cover only Europe and North America. Browsing and email feel normal, but video from India can buffer. It didn’t unblock any streaming service we tested, and torrenting is blocked for free accounts.

For that, our VPNs for torrenting are the better choice. Use Hide.me as a privacy layer on public Wi-Fi, with Windscribe for streaming.

What a Free VPN Can and Can’t Do in India

Free VPNs cover the everyday reasons people in India want one, with a few limits:

• Privacy from your mobile operator: Jio, Airtel, and Vi can see which sites you visit. With a VPN on, they see an encrypted connection to the VPN server and little else.
• Railway station, airport, and café Wi-Fi: unsecured networks let others on them watch unencrypted traffic. A VPN encrypts everything before it leaves your phone.
• Blocked apps and sites: India has blocked hundreds of apps since 2020, including TikTok. A VPN changes your IP address, but some apps also check your account or SIM country, as our guide to using TikTok in India explains.
• Foreign streaming services: US-only services such as Sling TV check for a US IP address. Free servers abroad work with some catalogs, within a 10 GB limit.
• Internet shutdowns: when authorities cut mobile internet in a region, no VPN can restore it, since there’s no connection to encrypt.

Why Free VPNs Have No Indian Servers

VPNs are legal in India. In 2022, however, CERT-In, India’s cybersecurity agency, ordered VPN companies running servers in the country to store customers’ names, IP addresses, and usage records for years. That goes against a no-logs policy, so NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN moved their Indian servers out of India and now offer Indian IP addresses from servers abroad. Websites still see an Indian IP address, and no Indian logs exist.

India also asked Google and Apple to remove VPN apps that didn’t comply. Hide.me went from Indian app stores in November 2024 and PrivadoVPN in January 2025. Their Windows apps remain available. Hola and Urban VPN advertise India for free, but their privacy records rule them out.

Using a VPN doesn’t change what’s legal, either. Anything illegal in India without a VPN, from piracy to fraud, remains illegal with one.

Free VPNs to Avoid in India

These free VPNs are easy to find in India, but none would make our VPN rankings:

• Hola VPN. Its free version shares your device and IP address with other users, and its privacy policy allows logging of your browsing activity.
• Urban VPN. Security researchers found its browser extension collecting users’ conversations with AI chatbots and sharing them with a data broker linked to the company.
• Turbo VPN. It’s an ad-supported free app, and its no-logs claims have no independent audit behind them, unlike the privacy-focused VPNs we recommend.
• Unknown “India VPN” apps. Free apps with no named company, audit, or readable privacy policy usually pay for their servers with ads and your data.

How to Get an Indian IP Address for Free

No free plan offers one, so the free way to an Indian IP address goes through a paid VPN’s money-back guarantee. NordVPN, Proton VPN, and ExpressVPN have Indian servers and refund the full price within 30 days.

ExpressVPN’s India location was the fastest in our tests, with a 4.0% speed loss.

Get an Indian IP With NordVPN

1. Subscribe to NordVPN, or start its three-day trial on Android.
2. Set up NordVPN on a phone or laptop and sign in.
3. Search for India in the server list and connect.
4. Confirm the location on an IP checker, which should list India.
5. Cancel within 30 days and request the refund through live chat if you don’t want to keep it.

Other VPN free trials work the same way, though most require a payment card at signup.

Conclusion

If you want JioHotstar or an Indian bank from abroad, skip the free plans altogether. None of them has an Indian server, and the free apps advertising India aren’t ones we’d trust. NordVPN’s Mumbai servers, covered by a 30-day refund, are the cleaner way to get an Indian IP address for a trip.

Because of this, NordVPN also tops our India VPN ranking. For privacy at home, a free VPN does the job well, and to be 100% honest, Proton VPN’s free plan is the one we’d keep on every device. It’s uncapped, ad-free, and covered by the audited no-logs policy of VPN Plus, so you still keep things private.

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