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The Best VPNs for the UAE
Our Verdict
Our top choice for the UAE is Astrill VPN, with a rating of 9.3/10. In our hands-on tests, Astrill simply has the most effective obfuscation, unblocking websites and web services (including VOIP calls) 100% of the time.
The internet in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is heavily censored. If you’re planning a short vacation or business trip to the region, you might be shocked to find WiFi calls and social media apps are blocked.
In a country where 99% of the population use the internet, it’s no surprise that almost two thirds of the total UAE population use a VPN to unblock websites and web services.
A trustworthy VPN with effective obfuscation is simply the easiest way to bypass these restrictions and stay connected to people outside the UAE.
Summary: The Best VPNs for the UAE
After testing 62 VPN services, our recommended VPNs that still work in Dubai and Abu Dhabi are:
- Astrill: Best VPN for the UAE
- ExpressVPN: Cheaper Alternative VPN for the UAE
- Windscribe Free: Best Free VPN for the UAE
Why Trust Us?
We’re fully independent and have been reviewing VPNs since 2016. Our ratings are based on our own testing results and are unaffected by financial incentives. Learn who we are and how we test VPNs.
The VPNs we recommend are secure and have private logging policies. Using them, you can access WhatsApp calls, FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and Telegram easily.
Comparison of the Best UAE VPNs
The table below compares the top-rated VPNs for the UAE on their ability to bypass internet firewalls, nearby servers, speed, price, and more:
The Best UAE VPNs Analyzed
1. Astrill VPN: Best VPN for the UAE
Ranked #1 out of 62 VPNs for the UAE
Cheapest Price $12.50/mo over two years See all plans Logging Policy Some User Logs Servers 107 Data Leaks No Jurisdiction Liechtenstein If you simply want a VPN that always works in the UAE, and you aren’t worried about the price, then Astrill VPN is our top recommendation.
Our tests show that Astrill’s obfuscation works to unblock websites and services a staggering 100% of the time, so it’s not surprising that it’s our top choice for bypassing censorship in the UAE.
But it does have some weaknesses: it’s not as fast as other VPNs, it’s expensive, and it doesn’t offer a free trial.
Obfuscation & Server Network
What makes Astrill better than all other VPNs at unblocking is its advanced obfuscation technology.
Its proprietary protocols (StealthVPN and OpenWeb) disguises your VPN traffic as normal traffic, allowing you to access websites and VoIP services that other VPNs fail to unblock.
But you’ve also got the option to use WireGuard and OpenVPN, which are the industry gold standard for security and privacy. They offer strong ChaCha20 and AES-256 encryption ciphers, ensuring your web activity stays hidden from Etisalat.
Astrill has a range of VPN servers suited to users in the UAE, including a VPN server inside the UAE that will assign you a UAE IP address. It also has a good selection of server locations in neighboring countries like Egypt, Israel, India, and Pakistan.
If you’re trying to avoid government surveillance, then the UAE server will do the trick. But if you want to unblock websites and foreign streaming services, we suggest connecting to a VPN server in a different country.
Speed & Performance
In our speed tests, we recorded an average 25% speed loss connected to servers around the globe. Connecting to a nearby country, we experienced very fast speeds, with minimal 5% speed loss.
Granted, these speeds aren’t as fast as ExpressVPN or NordVPN, but they’re more than enough to stream video in full HD or bypass censorship smoothly.
Astrill accesses the US Netflix library from overseas.
Privacy & Logging Policy
Astrill logs some data, like your IP address and timestamps, however this information is permanently deleted after each VPN session.
This means it isn’t as private as ExpressVPN, which avoids logging any identifiable information at all.
We would like to see Astrill adopt diskless servers and commission an independent audit to prove its privacy-friendly logging policy.
Pricing & Free Trial
Astrill is easily the best UAE VPN for unblocking sites, but its price also reflects this.
If you’re based in the UAE or plan to move there, the cheapest long-term subscription is $12.50 per month on a 2-year contract.
Alternatively, if you’re going for a short trip, you can sign up for 30 days for $30.00, which works out to just $1 a day for access to unrestricted internet and your overseas streaming services.
Astrill is one of the few VPNs that doesn’t offer a free trial or refund policy, meaning you can’t try it out before buying it.
That said, you won’t find another VPN with servers in the UAE that’s nearly as good at circumventing web blocks.
2. ExpressVPN: Cheaper Alternative VPN for the UAE
Cheapest Price $6.67/mo over 15 Months See all plans Logging Policy No Identifying Data Servers 3,000 Data Leaks No Jurisdiction British Virgin Islands (Privacy Haven) ExpressVPN is an excellent VPN for Abu Dhabi or Dubai. The VPN has built-in obfuscation for unblocking websites, strong encryption ciphers, and nearby servers in Pakistan, Israel, and Egypt. ExpressVPN is also one of the fastest VPNs we’ve ever tested, making it a great alternative to Astrill if you’re looking for something a bit cheaper.
Obfuscation & Server Network
Setting up ExpressVPN is effortless. All of its servers have obfuscation automatically enabled, so simply connect to your chosen location and you’ll be able to unblock your desired website in seconds.
ExpressVPN’s obfuscation isn’t as consistent as Astrill’s in the UAE, but you’ll still be able to access restricted websites most of the time.
ExpressVPN has a number of countries neighboring the UAE.
Unlike Astrill, ExpressVPN doesn’t offer servers in the UAE. However, it’s a great pick for connecting out to a different country and bypassing web blocks.
It’s got one of the most extensive server networks we’ve seen, with 3,000 servers across 106 countries. We recommend using its servers in Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt, Pakistan, or India for unrestricted access to the internet.
Speed & Performance
ExpressVPN is the fastest VPN we recommend for the UAE. We recorded an international speed loss of just 15%, which is extremely impressive.
ExpressVPN is also better than Astrill at unblocking global streaming services. It successfully bypasses geo-restrictions on almost every streaming service we’ve tested.
In our test, ExpressVPN unblocked HBO Max everytime.
Every site we’ve tested with the VPN loads quickly at maximum picture quality, and without any buffering.
Privacy & Logging Policy
ExpressVPN’s privacy-friendly logging policy was proven by a Turkish server seizure in 2017. Law enforcement was unable to find any personal information about an individual on ExpressVPN’s servers.
The VPN service also has diskless servers that almost ensure any information saved is completely wiped periodically.
It saves account information and anonymized bandwidth details, but this can’t be used to identify you or your activity.
It’s also based in a privacy haven, the British Virgin Islands, so it’s free from the pressures of surveillance-heavy governments.
Pricing & Refund Policy
At just $6.67 per month on a 15-month contract, ExpressVPN is much cheaper than Astrill.
You can also opt for a monthly subscription, giving you the flexibility to cancel when you like, for just $12.95 per month.
That said, you can test out the service completely free of charge with its 7-day free trial or 30-day money-back guarantee offer.
The Best Free UAE VPNs Analyzed
1. Windscribe Free: Best Free VPN for the UAE
Ranked #1 Free VPN for the UAE
Data Cap 10GB Cheapest Price Free Logging Policy No Identifying Data Servers 11 Data Leaks No Jurisdiction Canada (Five Eyes Member) Windscribe Free is the top-rated free VPN for the UAE. We found that its obfuscation works well to unblock websites and apps in the UAE.
Importantly, its obfuscation is available on both mobile and desktop applications, which makes it a great solution if you’re traveling to the region for a short period of time and need a free VPN on the go.
However, as with most free VPNs, there is a downside. Windscribe Free comes with a 10GB monthly data cap and a smaller server list than most paid VPNs.
Obfuscation & Server Network
There’s a reason why Windscribe Free is the only free VPN we recommend for the UAE: it’s the only safe free VPN that works well against online censorship.
Its two obfuscation protocols, Stealth and WStunnel, consistently unblock websites in the UAE without any issues. Usually we see VPNs paywall their obfuscation protocols or servers, so Windscribe’s user-first approach is a welcome change.
Windscribe Free has a modern and user-friendly interface.
If you’re based in the UAE and want access to websites, services, or content from outside the region, you’ll have to connect to a VPN server in a different country.
Windscribe Free doesn’t offer servers in neighboring countries with less internet restrictions, like Egypt, Georgia, Armenia, Pakistan, or India. Its closest VPN server to the UAE is in Turkey, which is also widely known to have strict online censorship.
We recommend using Windscribe Free’s US and Canada VPN servers instead. Or you could opt for Windscribe Free’s servers in Europe: UK, Germany, and Switzerland.
Speed & Performance
Using Windscribe Free, we experienced an average speed loss of 13% on international servers.
Considering that free VPNs are generally slower than their paid counterparts, this isn’t a bad result. Nonetheless, ExpressVPN beats its speeds by far.
Windscribe Free can unblock some streaming services, but it doesn’t perform as well as other paid VPNs. It doesn’t offer any servers in the UAE, so you aren’t able to unblock services like Starzplay or JawwyTV. It also fails to unblock US Netflix.
Privacy & Logging Policy
Windscribe Free might offer a restricted server network, but it offers the same robust security and privacy as the paid version.
With the VPN, you get access to its reliable kill switch, which prevents your real IP address from leaking should your internet connection drop, and strong AES-256 encryption, which prevents local ISPs from seeing your internet activity.
Windscribe Free’s diskless VPN servers also prevent your data from being saved onto a physical hard drive, and its open-source app code is available for all security experts to scrutinize.
However, it’s not a perfect VPN service. It hasn’t been audited by a third party. Competitors like Proton VPN Free have published a no-logs audit verifying its free service doesn’t collect activity logs.
10GB of Monthly Data
Windscribe Free doesn’t require its users to add credit card details, but you do have to register before using it.
Windsribe Free also has a restrictive data cap of 10GB per month.
Depending on whether you’re traveling to the UAE for a few days or if you’re based in the country, you might find paid alternatives more suitable for everyday use.
UAE VPNs You Should Avoid
Not every VPN is suited to bypassing censorship in the UAE. In our testing, most VPNs failed to unblock websites altogether. We’ve compiled a list of the VPNs you should avoid if you’re in the UAE.
Urban VPN
Urban VPN Free claims to be a VPN service, but it’s actually a peer-to-peer proxy network, making it much less secure than a VPN.
It doesn’t encrypt your data at all and collects your IP address and browsing activity.
Urban VPN’s website alludes to the fact that it’s a peer-to-peer network.
Urban VPN paid subscription apparently opts you out of this network, but without verification through a third-party audit, we can’t know for sure.
VPN UAE: Unlimited VPN in UAE
VPN UAE is another unsafe service. Not only does it contain annoying ads, its privacy policy is extremely vague.
VPN UAE has a vague privacy policy.
The VPN collects “system logs” and “other personal data (such as your IP address).” A privacy policy that’s difficult to understand or doesn’t fully explain the data it collects it a huge red flag.
We highly recommend avoiding unsafe VPNs like VPN UAE.
Why You Need a VPN in the UAE
If you live in or are traveling to Abu Dhabi or Dubai in the UAE, you’ll need a VPN to circumvent internet censorship.
The UAE has extremely strict online restrictions, blocking everyday use of dating apps, VoIP services, pornography, news websites, gambling sites, and more.
Some popular websites and web services unavailable in the UAE include:
- Tinder
- Bumble
- FaceTime
- Skype
- Snapchat
- Wikipedia
To combat these restrictions, VPNs use obfuscation protocols and obfuscated servers to disguise your device’s location and unblock these websites and services.
VPNs are also great for encrypting your web traffic, so the websites you visit can no longer be tracked by local ISPs like Etisalat and Du.
In addition, a VPN lets you stream video content from other countries. Streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ are technically available in the UAE. However, film and TV is heavily censored to remove political content, LGBTQ+ content, and pornographic content.
If you’re based outside the UAE and want to watch Arabic content, a VPN with servers in the UAE and nearby countries can give you access to streaming services like Starzplay, Shahid, and JawwyTV.
Importantly, we highly recommend installing a VPN service before you travel to the UAE, as VPN websites are blocked 44% of the time in the country. The least accessible VPN websites — TunnelBear, NordVPN, and Secure VPN — are even blocked upwards of 90% of the time.
Are VPNs Legal in UAE?
VPN websites and apps are blocked in the UAE to reduce usage, but there isn’t any legislation making VPN usage illegal.
The Federal Law No. 12 of 2016 (amending the Cyber Crimes Law) states that a VPN is legal to use in the UAE as long as it’s not used to mask illegal activity.
However, what can constitute as illegal activity in the UAE includes: accessing online pornography, online gambling or betting, expressing certain political opinions, and same-sex sexual activity.
If a VPN is used to hide criminal activity, the user could face imprisonment or a financial penalty between AED 500,000 (around $136,000) and AED 2 milion (roughly $545,000).
The UAE Cyber Crimes Law states that using a VPN is legal.
In reality, though, local authorities in the UAE are more concerned with tackling serious online crime, like online efforts to recruit terrorists, than an otherwise law-abiding citizen accessing a TV series only available on US Netflix.
How to Get the Fastest VPN Speeds in the UAE
When using a VPN to bypass censorship within the UAE, you’re going to get faster speeds if you connect to a VPN server that is physically closer to your location.
Ideally we could connect to VPN servers in neighboring countries like Egypt, Georgia, Armenia, Pakistan, or India.
However, many of the UAE’s neighboring countries also enforce similar online censorship, so servers in Bahrain, Israel, Iran, or Oman might offer faster speeds but won’t give you access to the unrestricted internet.
If you connect to a distant VPN server (e.g. in the US), your connection speeds will inevitably drop because of the distance between you and the VPN server.
Our top-rated VPNs for the UAE offer a large selection of servers in countries that are nearby to the UAE, but also in countries with unrestricted internet access.
Here’s a table listing the best VPN locations for each provider we recommend:
How We Test VPNs for the UAE
Censorship in the UAE means residents and visitors don’t have full access to the free, global internet.
We’ve tested 62 VPN services, including both free and paid, to find the best ones that are the most secure, fast, and work well in the UAE.
To find the best VPNs for the UAE, we look for:
- Ability to reliably and consistently bypass UAE’s website blocks.
- Strong encryption and obfuscation technologies.
- Fast connection speeds from within the country.
- VPN servers in the UAE and nearby countries.
- No IPv4, IPv6, DNS, or WebRTC leaks.
- A minimal logging policy.
We’ve split the analysis into five main subcategories. Each subcategory is differently weighted according to how important it is for UAE VPNs.
Here is how the top-rated UAE VPNs performed in each of our key testing categories:
VPNs with a data cap receive a reduction to their overall rating.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of each testing category:
1. Bypassing UAE Censorship: 40%
Minimum Requirement: Access censored content in the UAE over 50% of the time.
We Recommend: Access censored content in the UAE over 80% of the time.
A large number of popular websites and services are blocked within the UAE. The primary to use a VPN in the country is to unblock these sites.
To measure a VPN’s ability to bypass censorship, we run tests to see if the VPN lets us access blocked content from within the UAE.
We run these tests multiple times, with different types of blocked content, to see how consistently the VPN is able to beat the censors.
2. Obfuscation Technology: 20%
Minimum Requirement: A form of obfuscation technology.
We Recommend: Multiple types of effective obfuscation.
Obfuscation technology, often in the form of ‘Stealth’ protocols, are crucial for a VPN to evade strict censorship regimes.
Obfuscation disguises your traffic by wrapping in a protective layer that hides it in amongst regular HTTPS traffic.
This makes it much harder for the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) tools – that censorship systems like the Great Firewall of China use to detect VPN users – to identify and block your connection.
We first check whether the VPN includes an obfuscation protocol and then we test the service using that protocol, to see how effectively it works.
3. Privacy & Logging Policy: 20%
Minimum Requirement: A clear privacy policy with only anonymised logs.
We Recommend: A strict zero-logs policy.
There’s no point using a VPN that is collecting and storing information about you and your activity. This is especially true in authoritarian countries like the UAE.
We examine each VPN service’s privacy policy in detail to make sure they’re not logging any data they shouldn’t be.
We would never recommend a VPN that doesn’t protect you privacy.
4. Speed: 10%
Minimum Requirement: Average international download speeds above 40Mbps.
We Recommend: Average international download speeds above 60Mbps.
Connection speed can make or break a VPN service. All VPNs will reduce your speed to some degree, but some VPNs are so fast you won’t even notice it.
We conduct weekly manual speeds tests to see which VPNs have the fastest speeds around the world. We test both local, domestic connections and long-distance, international connections.
For a UAE VPN, international speeds are the most important because, more often than not, you’ll be using the VPN to connect outside the country.
5. Nearby Servers to the UAE: 10%
Minimum Requirement: VPN servers in at least two nearby countries.
We Recommend: VPN servers in the UAE and multiple nearby countries.
VPN server locations are important for speed, too. The further a VPN connection has to travel, the slower your speeds will be.
That’s why we inspect each VPN’s server network list to assess how good its selection of UAE-adjacent servers is. We check for servers in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Israel, Egypt, India and Turkey.
We also factor in whether the VPN offers servers within the UAE itself. These servers won’t help you bypass the geographic restrictions, but they will give you the fastest speeds and protect you from government surveillance.
Data Cap Penalty
Data Cap Penalty
Almost all free VPNs come with a data cap. Like with most limitations on free VPNs, this is imposed to encourage users to upgrade to a premium subscription.
If you use up your data cap, the rest of your internet activity will be outside the VPN tunnel. Consequently, your ISP can monitor the webpages you visit, and you won’t be able to access blocked websites in the UAE.
We apply a penalty to the VPN’s final overall rating for the UAE based on its data cap:
- Unlimited bandwidth: No deduction to the overall rating
- 10GB per month: -20% to the overall rating
- 500MB per day: -25% to the overall rating
- 5GB per month: -30% to the overall rating
- 1GB per month: -35% to the overall rating
- 200MB per day: -40% to the overall rating
- 500MB per month: -50% to the overall rating