The Best VPNs for Australia

NordVPN has one of the largest Australian server networks in the industry, with 190 servers spread across 5 Australian cities: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

Connecting to each server location only took a handful of seconds at every attempt, and with so many servers available, we never encountered sudden slowdowns, connection issues, or even search engine CAPTCHAs.

NordVPN unblocked every Australian service we tested. Here are the full results of our Australian streaming tests:

While ExpressVPN still struggles with Kay Sports, NordVPN easily accessed every single Australian streaming platform on every Australian server.

NordVPN works really well with Kayo Sports.

The only downside is that the VPN’s Smart DNS feature doesn’t work with Australian streaming services, but that won’t affect most people.

As with most of NordVPN’s connections around the world, we equally experienced excellent speeds connecting into Australia.

After connecting to Sydney from cities like New York, Los Angeles, and London our average speed loss was only 16%.

On average, NordVPN’s international download speed into Australia is 84Mbps, which is currently the fastest we’ve recorded.

NordVPN has attractive user-friendly apps for most devices. You can install it on macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, and Android TV.

You can use the VPN on up to 10 devices simultaneously, which is generous compared to many similar VPNs.

Although NordVPN feels nice to use, we enjoyed using ExpressVPN slightly more. Unlike NordVPN, its features are labeled and its compact design takes up less screen size compared to NordVPN’s desktop apps.

Considering its impressive Australian performance, NordVPN is excellent value for money. It costs $2.99/mo over 27 months, which is less than half the price of ExpressVPN.

However, the subscription price increases on renewal, ultimately reaching a similar price to ExpressVPN. Put simply, you lose the budget factor after two years of use.

NordVPN runs a 7-day free trial if you download the app and sign up for a subscription via the Google Play store. Once the trial is offer, you still benefit from the service’s 30-day refund policy.

ExpressVPN gives you access to IP addresses in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

These are the same exact cities available in NordVPN’s apps, although ExpressVPN offers the ability to manually select different Sydney servers, including one in the Wooloomooloo district.

The provider’s servers are the quickest to connect to compared to any other VPN service we tested. In just under 3 seconds, the VPN switched our IP address to an Australian one no matter our distance from Australia.

We tested ExpressVPN with every major Australian streaming platform. Here are the results:

ExpressVPN successfully bypassed the geo-blocks of most Australian streaming services, streaming quickly at maximum picture quality and no buffering.

We easily accessed 9Now from overseas using ExpressVPN.

The only surprising disappointment was its failure to bypass Kayo Sports’ geo-restrictions. This is the one area where ExpressVPN failed, and NordVPN and Surfshark succeeded.

If you’re a cricket fan it’s worth knowing that ExpressVPN is also one our recommended VPNs for India, especially for watching the IPL for free from Australia.

Using ExpressVPN, we connected to Sydney from overseas and recorded just a 17% loss in our download speed. This is an impressive result considering a distance of 10,000 miles.

Our average download speed connecting into Australia was 83Mbps; marginally slower than NordVPN, but more than enough for streaming content in Full HD and 4K without buffering.

ExpressVPN makes getting an Australian IP address quick and easy, thanks to its intuitive and well-designed apps that quickly connect you to Australian servers.

It’s the most widely compatible VPN on the market, with apps for every major platform, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

There are also bespoke apps for Apple TV, Fire TV Stick, and Android TV, so you can stream Australian sports and TV on your home devices.

Uniquely, ExpressVPN is the only VPN with a dedicated router app.

Since its Smart DNS service can’t unblock Australian streaming services, setting up the VPN on your router is a good alternative solution.

ExpressVPN’s cheapest subscription works out at $4.99/mo over 28 months. This is not cheap compared to competing VPNs like NordVPN, but we believe its exceptional performance justifies the cost.

Similarly to NordVPN, you can try ExpressVPN for free by signing up to its 7-day free trial (via iOS or Android) or by taking advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee.

Just like its better-ranked rivals, Surfshark also offers IP addresses in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

On a less positive note, there are only 40 Surfshark servers in Australia, and connecting to them took a lot longer than we expected. While ExpressVPN connected almost instantly, Surfshark took over five seconds.

We did get very excited about one specific and very rare feature, though: Surfshark’s GPS Override setting in its Android app.

It allowed us to spoof our GPS location (which we verified using Google Maps) and bypass GPS-based content restrictions. Setup isn’t too complicated, but we recommend watching Surfshark’s helpful explainer video.

Using Surfshark’s Override GPS location function.

Surfshark performed almost identically to NordVPN with Australian streaming services, unblocking every single one:

The only very slight nuisance we came across was occasional image degradation during peak traffic.

This is largely due to Surfshark’s slower connection speeds but, in all fairness, it only happened a handful of times across hundreds of streaming tests.

Surfshark’s download speeds need to improve if it wants to give NordVPN and ExpressVPN a run for their money.

Its Australian servers registered an average speed reduction of 21% connecting from countries like the US, UK and Canada.

Connection speeds remained stable for the most part, although during peak hours we did notice a wobble here and there (which explains the slight blurriness we mentioned above).

All of Surfshark’s apps are user-friendly and relatively straightforward to navigate, particularly the mobile ones.

The desktop app does take a little too much screen space, and can’t be resized either, which is annoying. It also feels slightly cluttered, with all those extra settings crammed into it.

Similarly to our other VPN picks, you’ll find apps for Fire Stick and Apple TV, as well as browser extensions. They all work almost identically to the mobile and computer apps, so you can easily switch from one device to another.

There is no dedicated router app, though, so streaming with Surfshark on your PS5, Xbox or Roku Stick is going to be more slightly more challenging than using ExpressVPN.

As we’ve already said, Surfshark provides excellent value at only $4.99/mo over 28 months. This is even cheaper than NordVPN.

If you don’t want to commit to a paid subscription just yet, you can get a 7-day Surfshark free trial on all devices.

The VPN service will also honor its 30-day money-back guarantee on all pricing plans, with the full refund deposited in your account within a few days.

TunnelBear is the only free VPN service with an Australia server, allowing you to connect to a Sydney IP address completely cost-free. This is very useful to visit Australian websites from overseas.

The VPN’s free server list is identical to the paid version, but we’d like to see more Australian cities added. Australia covers 3,000 square miles, so including servers on the west coast in Perth is undoubtedly better for users connecting from Europe or Asia.

Here are the results of TunnelBear Free’s Australian streaming tests:

Sadly, the free version of TunnelBear was detected and blocked by most Australian streaming services. The only exception was 7Plus.

TunnelBear Free doesn’t work with most Australian streaming services.

To unblock Australian streaming services for free, avoid TunnelBear and instead sign up to a NordVPN or ExpressVPN free trial.

Connecting to TunnelBear’s free Sydney server from New York, we enjoyed fast and stable internet speeds. Our speed loss was only 26%.

We’re also pleased that TunnelBear doesn’t cap or throttle its connection speeds like other free VPNs do. Our average download speed was 74Mbps, resulting in smooth connections despite the geographical distance.

TunnelBear has some of the most user-friendly VPN apps around, and it’s available to install on popular platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

You can also install it as a browser extension on Chrome and Firefox for even quicker access to an Australian IP address.

However, TunnelBear’s apps are nowhere near as advanced as ExpressVPN’s or NordVPN’s. Moreover, there are no bespoke clients for streaming devices like Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, or Android TV. It’s not compatible with routers, either.

In other words, there’s no way easy way to use TunnelBear on anything other than your computer or smartphone.

TunnelBear’s free VPN requires no account or credit card details in order for you to install and use it. It makes getting a free Australian IP address easy and privacy-friendly.

The downsides are substantial though, especially the monthly data cap of 2GB. This is one of the most restrictive data allowances of any free VPN. For instance, Windscribe offers 10GB of free data each month.

After years of testing, we have also noticed that TunnelBear’s free data no longer rolls over if unused. Previously, unused data used to build up, but this ‘perk’ was recently removed.