The Best VPNs for China

I test from a virtual Windows PC in Shanghai, manually checking 15 popular VPNs every two weeks against YouTube, Instagram and Google. The chart below shows how they performed over the past 12 months.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve learned how to give each VPN the best possible chance of beating the Firewall. I’ve included the best tips in the table below, along with the most recent success rates, so you know which VPNs are working best right now.

Contrary to what many websites claim, ExpressVPN and NordVPN are no longer reliable options for China. I found that far too often they just couldn’t beat the Great Firewall. Here’s where the big names actually stand:

Popular VPNs I Don’t Recommend for China

• NordVPN (13%). Over the last 12 months, NordVPN has barely worked. Its own support pages admit to connectivity issues in the region, and its obfuscated servers (including its NordWhisper protocol) can’t get past China’s ML-based DPI.
• ExpressVPN (51%). Once one of my top China picks thanks to built-in obfuscation, ExpressVPN was hit hard by the late-2022 Firewall update and hasn’t recovered. Worth a try if you already pay for it; otherwise expect disappointment.
• Surfshark (15%). Surfshark is a low-priced VPN but it’s a poor choice for China. Its NoBorders anti-censorship mode was never very effective against the Firewall, and in my latest tests it stopped working in China altogether.

Other popular VPNs that rarely or never work in China:

• CyberGhost
• HideMyAss
• IPVanish
• TunnelBear
• VyprVPN

Picking a China VPN really comes down to one question: will it stay connected when it comes up against the Firewall? Speed matters, but reliability matters more, especially on hotel and public WiFi.

Most VPN sites are blocked inside China, so I can’t stress this enough: set everything up before you go.

1. Install on every device you’ll use, sign in, and confirm it connects before you leave.
2. Save the essentials offline: login details, mirror-site links, support email, and any config files.
3. Bring a backup: install two or three VPNs. Money-back guarantees mean you can trial extras at no real cost.
4. Turn on auto-connect and the kill switch to prevent leaks on public WiFi.

Already in China without a VPN? You still have options:

• Try cellular data or a mobile hotspot. Restrictions may be lighter than on hotel or café WiFi.
• If you have one VPN working, use it to download a second.
• Ask support for a mirror link. Many providers can email a China-accessible download.
• On Android, sideload the .apk if you saved it, or import manual OpenVPN/WireGuard config files.

Here’s my expert tip: skip the Chinese browsers. Your VPN is only half the job. If you browse through a Chinese browser like UC Browser, QQ Browser, Baidu, Sogou or 360 Secure Browser, you’re handing your traffic to an app that was built to comply with China’s censorship and data-sharing rules in the first place.

These browsers have a long track record of logging activity and sending data back to servers inside China. Some also bundle “acceleration” or compression features that quietly route your traffic through their own servers, which can sidestep your VPN without you noticing.

Stick to a mainstream browser you trust, like Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Brave.

Even top VPNs sometimes run into trouble due to Firewall updates or temporary clampdowns. Most problems have a quick fix.

VPNs are not legal in China unless they have been approved by the government.

As none of my VPN picks for China are likely to ever get such approval, you should consider them restricted in the country.

Enforcement is inconsistent though, so in practice, the biggest risk for most people is your VPN not working rather than anything more serious.

Authorities have so far been focused on making VPNs harder to use, with no publicly documented cases of penalizing tourists for personal VPN use.

It’s a different story when VPNs are sold, promoted, or used commercially or politically:

• In 2018, a Shanghai court gave a developer surnamed Dai a three-year suspended sentence and a 10,000-yuan fine for building and selling VPN software.
• A programmer was ordered to pay over one million yuan and had his earnings confiscated for using a VPN to work for a foreign company.
• A Uyghur student reportedly received a 13-year sentence for using a VPN to access material authorities deemed illegal.
• Some users have had mobile service suspended until they deleted VPN apps and had their phones inspected at a police station.

Three laws underpin the system: the Cybersecurity Law (strict data-handling and data-localization rules, amended with changes taking effect in 2026), the Data Security Law (cross-border data transfers), and the Personal Information Protection Law (broad oversight of how apps handle personal data). Together they give the state wide authority to restrict content and control the flow of internet traffic.

What this means for you: choose a reputable VPN based outside China, and the odds of any consequence for personal use are minimal. Avoid unsafe VPNs with weak encryption, which can expose your activity.

The Great Firewall (GFW) is China’s internet censorship system, which operates through state legislation and internet filtering technologies.

Since its inception in 2003, the GFW has empowered Chinese authorities to monitor and restrict internet access in mainland China.

The Firewall censors the internet by imposing restrictions, slowing down connections, or outright blocking access to specific websites, applications, and online services.

Unlike internet censorship in other countries, China’s Great Firewall has been built into the country’s internet infrastructure since the beginning, making it a fundamental component of its online governance.

The GFW’s operations are complex and constantly evolving, with the Chinese Communist Party maintaining a high level of secrecy regarding how internet censorship functions within the country.

By combining these technologies and continuously upgrading its infrastructure, China has established the most sophisticated and dynamic system of online censorship in the world.

How Do the Best VPNs for China Beat the Great Firewall?

The most effective VPNs evade the GFW using mimicry-based obfuscation: instead of making traffic look like meaningless noise, they make it look like something real and trusted, like Chrome connecting to a major tech company’s website.

A censor can’t block that without breaking normal internet access for everyone. This is why newer protocols like VLESS + REALITY (which borrows the TLS handshake of a legitimate, widely-visited website) are far more effective than older scrambling methods, like obfs4proxy.

Crucially, the best obfuscation tools also handle active probing correctly: when the GFW sends test traffic to a suspected VPN server, the server responds with an innocent-looking web page rather than a VPN handshake.

Without passing these active probing tests, even technically strong obfuscation tools will get quickly burned.

Despite these advances, the GFW still manages to block many VPN servers and blacklist their IP addresses.

In China, many popular websites and apps are inaccessible due to the GFW. You can use our tool to test if a website is blocked in China.

The most notable blocks include:

• Search & email: Google (since 2014), Gmail, Yahoo
• Social: Facebook (2009), X/Twitter (2009), Instagram (2014), Snapchat, Threads
• Messaging: WhatsApp (2017), Telegram, Messenger, Discord
• Streaming & media: YouTube (2011), Netflix, Spotify, Twitch
• News: BBC, The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg
• AI tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini

The Google Play Store is also completely blocked while the Apple App Store is heavily restricted, with no VPN apps.

Inside China, people rely on local alternatives like WeChat, Weibo and Baidu, all of which operate under government monitoring. Note that LinkedIn, Weibo, and Youku remain accessible, and GitHub is available too.