The Best VPNs with US IP Addresses

What I love about ExpressVPN is how easily it gets around US content geo-restrictions on all popular devices.

I unblocked every major American streaming service I tried from abroad: the VPN unblocked HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, and Prime Video, each one loading on the first attempt.

ExpressVPN is my top pick for unblocking US streaming services like HBO Max.

It was just as formidable at accessing Peacock TV from outside the US and streaming 3pm Premier League games.

The bigger benefit, though, is reach: that access is exceptionally fast and it stretches across an incredibly wide range of devices.

Alongside its standard computer and mobile apps, ExpressVPN has developed equally streamlined Android TV, Fire TV, and Apple TV software.

Every subscription plan also comes with a free Smart DNS proxy (called MediaStreamer) that worked sublimely on my game consoles.

ExpressVPN provides IP addresses from 56 different US cities, including popular locations like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.

The only major cities ExpressVPN doesn’t offer IPs from (but NordVPN does) are Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo.

ExpressVPN has always had a highly dependable server network in the US and, over many years, we’ve rarely run into the unexpected slowdowns that usually point to server congestion.

With thousands more US-based servers in its arsenal, with regularly refreshed IP addresses, we’ve seen further improvements in speed stability and IP location accuracy.

Those servers connect near-instantaneously, too. It’s the kind of difference you only notice by comparison: both PIA and NordVPN leave me waiting a second or two longer.

ExpressVPN performed exceptionally well in all our tests, and that level of performance used to come with a price tag to match.

That changed recently when the company overhauled its pricing plans. ExpressVPN now costs $2.99/mo over 28 months, which puts it in the same territory as NordVPN.

It renews at a much lower price than NordVPN, too: $99.00 compared to $139.08.

If you don’t want to commit to a subscription just yet, there are ways for you to try ExpressVPN for free.

You can either sign up to a 3-day free trial via iOS or Android, or take advantage of the provider’s 30-day money-back guarantee that, in my experience, the company has always honored.

NordVPN is a great solution if you want to watch US streaming services from anywhere in the world. Everything ExpressVPN unblocked for me in the US, NordVPN unblocked too.

You can unblock US Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Prime Video and the other major American content platforms on the VPN’s US servers.

I streamed Hulu with NordVPN from abroad without any fuss.

You can do it on its intuitive computer and smartphone apps, via its Fire TV Stick and Apple TV apps, or using its Smart DNS service, which worked well on my PS5 and Xbox consoles.

NordVPN runs 3,400 servers located in America, giving its customers access to one of the widest ranges of US VPN IP addresses.

Up until recently, the VPN’s city and state coverage wasn’t as extensive as ExpressVPN’s or PIA’s. It has since caught up on states, covering all 50, even if it’s still a few cities short.

I connected to NordVPN’s US servers without any dramas.

The key cities that ExpressVPN covers but NordVPN doesn’t are Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Tampa, and Washington D.C.

Putting the coverage shortcomings aside, NordVPN’s NordLynx protocol performed amazingly and slowed my internet speed by only 14% connecting from abroad.

That matched PIA’s result and was the strongest figure among my paid picks, with every US connection holding a high speed from the start of a session to the end, and streaming at maximum resolution throughout.

NordVPN and ExpressVPN are almost equal in many areas, but not when it comes to dedicated American IPs.

If you need your US IP address to never change, or you simply don’t want to share it with other users, then your own dedicated VPN IP is the way to go.

While ExpressVPN’s IPs give you greater privacy, NordVPN’s dedicated IPs cover more US locations: 11 versus seven, to be exact, including popular cities like Atlanta, Boston, and Dallas.

As for user experience, NordVPN’s apps aren’t as well designed, in my opinion.

The desktop UI in particular can’t be resized, and it gives far too much prominence to useful but non-essential add-ons like Threat Protection and Dark Web.

That makes the window bigger than it needs to be, and it distracts from what I actually opened the app to do.

PrivadoVPN is one of the very few free VPNs that stream US Netflix. Most other free services I tested couldn’t manage it, Windscribe included.

I’ve never had an issue accessing US Netflix with PrivadoVPN’s free US servers.

On top of that, PrivadoVPN unblocks a variety of other major US streaming services, including the American content libraries of HBO Max, Paramount+, and Prime Video.

PrivadoVPN has also fixed its previously faulty Fire TV Stick app, so you can now use it to stream geo-restricted content on your TV.

PrivadoVPN has free servers in four US city locations: Miami, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C.

I always love to see a good coast-to-coast reach, and Miami covers off the South. The gap is the Midwest.

Windscribe offers more free US server locations, but I generally found PrivadoVPN’s server speeds not only faster but more stable, too.

In fact, our speed tests revealed an impact on download speed of just 8% while connected to PrivadoVPN’s free US servers.

Each location connected quickly for me, with no noticeable delay to page loading times.

As with Windscribe, PrivadoVPN limits free use of its service to 10GB per month.

That’s restrictive for regular VPN users, but it’s still more generous than the allowances of most other trustworthy free VPNs, TunnelBear’s 2GB being the obvious comparison.

The one thing I found genuinely annoying was the need to manually refresh my free data each month.

I couldn’t even do it in-app, only via my online account, which turns a two-second job into a chore.

Windscribe lets you connect to eight US cities in seven different states for free:

• Atlanta, Georgia
• Chicago, Illinois
• Dallas, Texas
• Los Angeles, California
• Miami, Florida
• New York City, New York
• Seattle, Washington
• Washington D.C.

For a free VPN, that’s a very generous number of US server locations, with options on the East Coast, West Coast, and in the South.

You can also connect to 9 other countries, with especially fast UK VPN servers and Canadian VPN locations available.

It’s a small selection compared to the paid version of Windscribe, but it’s still an impressive and diverse range of free locations to choose from.

Windscribe’s free VPN gave me access to most major US streaming services, which surprised me. It isn’t as good as PrivadoVPN in this area, though, and Netflix is the reason why.

I found it a consistently effective free VPN for Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney+, and Hulu.

Windscribe’s free US servers allowed me to access HBO Max’s US content library.

Sadly, Windscribe’s free US servers no longer work with US Netflix. They used to run smoothly, but Netflix now blocks all of the VPN’s free US IP addresses.

As with any free service, Windscribe has its drawbacks, the key one being its 10GB monthly bandwidth limit, which will frustrate frequent VPN users.

The other limitation concerns the VPN’s streaming performance.

Despite clocking fast internet speeds, I regularly experienced fluctuations that led to picture degradation and, sometimes, even buffering.

Finally, Windscribe’s free US servers trigger an awful lot of CAPTCHAs, particularly on search engines. At times I got stuck in endless loops, which completely derailed my browsing.