The Best VPNs for Italy

ExpressVPN is in a league of its own for streaming. While in Italy, we used it to unblock services from all over the world, including US Netflix, HBO Max (US & UK), BBC iPlayer, CBC Gem, and more.

However, the real standout for us is its user experience: our stream never buffered or failed to load, and the video quality never dropped.

When we connected to ExpressVPN’s Italy servers, it was just as consistent. We unblocked every major Italian website and streaming platform, including RaiPlay, DAZN Italy, Mediaset Infinity, La7, Sky Italia, and Netflix Italy.

Thanks to ExpressVPN, we watched geo-blocked shows like Uomini e Donne, MasterChef Italia and L’Isola dei Famosi from outside Italy.

The only slight downside was that we did occasionally experience slow loading times, particularly with RaiPlay. We’ve seen this with many VPNs, though.

ExpressVPN offers Italian IP addresses for Cosenza, Naples, and Milan, covering both the North and South of the country.

Having 3 Italian city options is an excellent geographical spread, and a big improvement on most other VPNs that often limit their server coverage to just Milan.

All server locations were extremely quick to connect to, and registered very fast connection speeds.

Connecting from abroad, we recorded an average download speed of 85Mbps, which was similar to PIA’s 86Mbps and faster than Proton VPN’s 84Mbps.

Depending on where you’re connecting from, select the Italian server location closest to you for marginally higher speeds.

ExpressVPN’s apps are the most intuitive we’ve used and as a result, the VPN provider scored 9.9/10 in our ease-of-use assessment.

The simple functionality and design consistency across devices is currently unrivaled. Many of the VPN’s app interfaces are the same across platforms, unlike other VPNs, which makes switching from one device to another seamless.

We can see that special attention has been given to the product’s usability and design, to make the VPN particularly accessible to beginners.

There’s almost nothing separating NordVPN and ExpressVPN, except for Italian streaming.

While ExpressVPN unblocked every popular platform we tested, NordVPN almost never worked with DAZN Italy.

We had slightly more success with Sky Italia, with the VPN working on every third or so attempt. However, this isn’t consistent enough to be considered a ‘pass’ in our tests.

Here are our results in full:

Table showing popular Italian streaming services NordVPN unblocks.

Streaming Service	Unblocked?
Netflix Italy	Yes
RaiPlay	Yes
Mediaset Infinity	Yes
DAZN Italy	No
Sky Italia	Sometimes
La7	Yes
SuperTennis	Yes
TIMvision	Yes

NordVPN is much more reliable for worldwide streaming. You can use it to access 17 Netflix libraries, including US Netflix, along with HBO Max, BBC iPlayer, and more.

Personally, we loved how NordVPN automatically assigned us a server that always worked first-time with US Netflix. Not many VPNs can match this level of reliability.

With an international speed loss of just 14%, you’re also unlikely to experience any buffering or sudden drops in video quality — regardless of your location.

NordVPN has one of the largest server networks available, with servers in 127 countries.

We used it mostly to change our online location while visiting Italy, letting us stream content from the US, UK, and Australia.

Its wide array of server locations also means you’re likely to have a server nearby, should you need to maximize your download speeds.

If you need an Italian IP address, NordVPN has 60 endpoints across 3 cities: Milan, Rome, and Palermo.

While we’d prefer to see more IP addresses added, its spread of locations is excellent and covers the north, center, and south of the country.

NordVPN includes several advanced features that make it a strong choice for tourists and expats in Italy.

Firstly, its auto-connect feature ensures your VPN connection is automatically active as soon as you connect to a network. This is vital for visiting Italy given its dependence on unsafe public WiFi networks.

You can also customize this feature not to activate on mobile networks (to save your phone’s battery) and on trusted networks, like your home WiFi.

Meshnet is another feature that came in handy when we stayed in Italy. It lets you remotely connect to a device anywhere in the world, as if you shared a local area network (LAN).

We used this to connect our iPhone to our home WiFi, letting us trick Netflix into thinking we were at our primary household.

Our one criticism is that NordVPN’s apps aren’t as user-friendly as ExpressVPN’s. The abundance of extra features feels overwhelming at times, and makes a ‘set-and-forget’ experience impossible.

Proton VPN is particularly good for watching Netflix Italy from abroad thanks to seamless, buffer-free connections.

In our latest tests, the VPN started streaming Italian geo-restricted content just as quickly as ExpressVPN. This was most evident with RaiPlay.

In the video below, you can see us stream movies exclusively available on Netflix Italy using Proton VPN’s automatic Italy server. We bypassed Netflix’s geo-restrictions without a hitch and instantly unblocked content:

Proton VPN delivers the same high level of streaming performance with RaiPlay, Mediaset Infinity, La7, and other Italian streaming services.

However, unlike ExpressVPN, it doesn’t unblock DAZN Italy. If watching Italian sports from abroad is your priority, ExpressVPN is the superior choice.

Proton VPN runs 104 VPN servers across Milan and Palermo. While this skips out central Italy entirely, it still offers more Italian IP addresses than NordVPN or Surfshark.

The VPN’s global server coverage is much more impressive, with servers in 145 countries. This server network is one of the largest available, and ensures you’ll always have a server nearby.

While connecting to Proton VPN servers located in different countries, we recorded an average international download speed loss of 16%.

This is marginally slower than ExpressVPN and NordVPN, but still fast enough for HD streaming in Italy.

Proton VPN has developed well-made apps for Android TV, Chromecast with Google TV, Apple TV and Fire TV, so you can stream Italian shows on large screen devices.

We tested the VPN on all these devices connecting to the Milan server, with no unexpected surprises to either speed or unblocking performance.

All these apps are intuitive and rather well-designed, despite having a roster of advanced features that may intimidate you if you’re new to VPNs.

Where Proton VPN falls short of ExpressVPN is device compatibility. For instance, there is no router app, which makes using Proton VPN less straightforward on certain devices.

Proton VPN is also more expensive than ExpressVPN, with its two-year plan costing $2.99 per month.

Aside from ExpressVPN and NordVPN, there aren’t any VPNs on Surfshark’s level for streaming.

Surfshark successfully unblocks 10 Netflix libraries, including the US, the UK, and Italy. In our experience, this always worked on our first attempt.

We also found that it works with virtually every US streaming service that we test. There’s no specific server that worked best: they’re all equally effective.

Similarly, Surfshark unblocks BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and UK Netflix, from outside the UK (including from Italy).

As was the case with NordVPN, Surfshark struggled to unblock DAZN Italy. All other Italian streaming services worked in our tests:

Table displaying popular Italian streaming services Surfshark unblocks.

Streaming Service	Unblocked?
Netflix Italy	Yes
RaiPlay	Yes
Mediaset Infinity	Yes
DAZN Italy	No
Sky Italia	Yes
La7	Yes
SuperTennis	Yes
TIMvision	Yes

Thanks to its 10Gbps server network, Surfshark rarely added enough overhead to cause our stream to buffer or freeze.

That said, when connecting from Italy to distant countries, like Australia, our video quality sometimes dropped to 720p.

Surfshark’s server network covers a respectable 100 countries, with city-level choice in 11 of them.

We tested this by connecting to a variety of Surfshark’s servers in the US, UK, Italy, and Japan, and using our IP checker tool to verify that our location had changed.

We personally found its US server coverage the most useful, with options in 24 cities. We used these to bypass the NFL blackout and stream a full game from our hotel room in Italy.

You can also use Surfshark to get an Italian IP address, with servers in Rome and Milan. While this didn’t affect our experience, we recommend switching to ExpressVPN, Proton VPN, or NordVPN, if you require an IP address from Southern Italy.

You can install Surfshark on all major devices with no limits. I made the most of this while abroad, running the VPN on my smartphone, tablet, and laptop, and I even shared my subscription with some friends.

The apps are intuitive enough, but using them daily during our trip to Italy revealed some real-world pain points.

All of its apps suffer from clutter, including multiple ways to connect, different server lists, and widgets for paid add-ons.

However, the biggest culprits were the mobile apps. Most significantly, our average time to connect to a server was 11.5 seconds on mobile (10.5 seconds longer than ExpressVPN).

This made traveling in Italy a chore, as every switch between public WiFi and mobile data required a tedious manual reconnection.

TunnelBear Free offers a free Italian server that allows you to get an Italian IP address based in Milan. This means you can access Italian websites from anywhere for free.

You can do this via the TunnelBear VPN app or its free browser extension for Chrome and Firefox.

TunnelBear Free is ideal for light browsing of Italian websites, with well-designed apps that are friendly to VPN beginners. It has a fun and colorful interface and its features are easy to use.

Unfortunately, TunnelBear is not a good free VPN for streaming Italian TV or Italian Netflix. It cannot access Netflix Italy, Mediaset Infinity, or RaiPlay outside Italy. However, the VPN did stream La7.

Additionally, TunnelBear imposes a stricter data limit than other free VPNs like PrivadoVPN and Windscribe, offering only 2GB of data per month, which prevents uninterrupted streaming.

Though it’s not good for streaming, TunnelBear’s free service is really fast, with an average speed on long-distance connections of 85Mbps — only a 15% slowdown compared to our normal internet connection.