(PCMag/James Martin)
Accessing Netflix with a VPN can be tricky, mostly because Netflix works hard to detect and limit access to VPN users. It’s still possible, but the process can be finicky at best and downright unreliable at worst. If you don’t mind some trial-and-error, you should still be able to access your favorite content regardless of your location. Here's why this process is so difficult and what you can expect when trying to unblock Netflix with a VPN.
The Netflix You See Is Different From Netflix Abroad
Most regions that Netflix supports have distinct catalogs. There’s often a bit of overlap among them, but some regions will have high-demand or niche shows that may not be available in your home region. This happens due to local licensing deals. Netflix may have paid for the rights to provide a show to a certain region rather than globally.
A good example is Rick & Morty. The show often gets limited every now and then in the US. Sometimes Netflix will only give you a couple of seasons, while other times the show is taken off the US catalog entirely. Meanwhile, Australia gets unrestricted access to every season. While these restrictions make sense at the business level, these practices end up being anti-consumer.
The show you have paid to access could be gone tomorrow with no notice. It’s not just Netflix that has this problem. Services like Hulu and Max have equally nebulous catalogs. VPNs help expand your content options. With so many services restricting what we actually own in terms of digital content, it is no surprise that many people turn to VPNs to take some of that content ownership back.
Netflix decides what content to show you by checking your IP address, which reveals your general location. Netflix then provides access to the appropriate regional catalog. A VPN will let you spoof your location to appear as though your traffic is originating from a different country.
Of course, it’s not so simple. Netflix takes a firm stance against password sharing, let alone accessing catalogs you haven’t technically paid for. Netflix blocks a VPN when it detects one, which the company does in a few ways. The easiest is to look for patterns in the traffic. If a group of IP addresses from the same server farm connects at all hours of the day, Netflix can examine the traffic to determine if it belongs to an individual customer or a VPN. If the system detects an IP address as belonging to a VPN service, that address could be banned from Netflix altogether. The alternative is having your VPN's access quarantined to a Limited library, which we'll explain in more detail below.
Using a VPN to spoof your location and access regional content does violate Netflix’s (and most streaming platforms') terms of service. Using a VPN for Netflix and watching content from another country is different from downloading copyrighted content without paying for it. After all, you are paying for Netflix. However, Netflix takes a firm stance against the practice. It’s not illegal to circumvent these restrictions, but it is a violation of the terms of service you accept when you sign up for the service, meaning Netflix can cancel your subscription and close your account if it chooses to.
How We Test Netflix on VPNs
Each VPN we evaluate goes through a series of tests. To assess Netflix access, we installed each VPN and attempted to access Netflix while connected to different servers. In these tests, we connected to VPN servers in Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the US. While these are far from the only countries serviced by Netflix, we chose them due to the population of each respective market and the differences in their content licensing agreements.
For each VPN service, we used any unblocking tools the desktop application supports. We started with a Chrome browser that was signed into a single Netflix account and loaded a new Incognito window every time the VPN was connected to a new location. Each VPN was given five attempts to load the content from a specific location, and we used a different IP address each time. Sometimes, this meant switching to a different server in the same location. For others, it meant trying an entirely different location within the same country. If the VPN provides servers specifically for streaming, we tried those first.
Blocked, Open, and Limited Streaming Access Explained
There are a few results you can get when trying to access Netflix with a VPN. We consider an unrestricted catalog to be Open. This result means the VPN successfully got around any blocks and isn’t being detected as a VPN connection. We call the second state Blocked. This result means that Netflix has banned or blocklisted that IP address and restricts access entirely.
We call the final type of result Limited. Sometimes, Netflix detects your VPN connection and restricts your catalog to just Netflix Originals. The options offered on the homepage change order depending on the region, but we only found the same selection of Originals.
Comparing our results from previous years with this year's, it's interesting to note that VPNs are now rarely Blocked outright; 20 of the 23 VPNs we evaluated were either Open or Limited in every region we tested. We found this to be the case most frequently on either Australian or Japanese VPN servers. Conversely, many of the VPNs we tested were Open in the US, the UK, and Canada.
While frustrating for people trying to access region-restricted content in Australia or Japan, this is an improvement for most customers trying to get around local Netflix restrictions. Netflix seems to be acknowledging it can't stop people from using VPNs outright and is instead choosing the lesser of two evils, giving you a reason to keep your monthly subscription going with enough Originals to choose from.
How Does a VPN Affect Netflix Playback?
Whether or not a VPN will impact your streaming experience will depend on your base speeds. Netflix recommends a connection that can sustain a 15 Mbps download at minimum for 4K video, while 1080p needs at least 5 Mbps. If you’re barely clearing those figures with your baseline speeds, then you’re likely to run into playback issues with a VPN. On the other hand, users with speeds far exceeding those minimums shouldn’t experience a noticeable slowdown when using a VPN.
To get the speed results in the chart above, we recorded the percentage change between speeds without the VPN connected on an Intel NUC 13 Extreme Kit ('Raptor Canyon') benchmark PC and those with the VPN turned on. Note that your results will likely differ from these, as every VPN provider reports different bandwidth peaks depending on where you're connecting from, trying to connect to, and even the time of day.
For example, while we might have seen peak speeds in our tests, that's likely because many VPN providers host servers in Manhattan, where we also test from. However, if we wanted to stream a show in NYC that's only available in the UK, all the data we want to stream must hop between the UK and the US before it makes it to your device. Added distance often means slower speeds, and our results only reflect what you should expect on a local connection in high-population centers.
How to Unblock Netflix With a VPN
Your best bet for unblocking Netflix is a VPN with streaming-specific servers. These servers often rotate out IP addresses for the best chances of success. If one doesn’t work, keep trying other servers in that region. Usually, it’s only a matter of time before the VPN has a certain region back up and running if it's being blocklisted.
You could also buy a dedicated IP address. A dedicated IP or static IP will be unique to you, so there will be no history of its use when it comes to streaming services like Netflix. This means you are less likely to be blocked or detected as using a VPN. The downside is that you'll lose some anonymity. The static address is yours, and only yours, so savvy observers could easily correlate online activities to you directly. But because Netflix has an easier time banning IP access in blocks rather than one at a time, a static IP could go much longer without being Blocked or Limited. These can be pricey, though, so it's a bit of a risk if you're only concerned about streaming online content.
Ultimately, accessing Netflix through a VPN is a moving target. What works today could be banned tomorrow, and the only way to know for certain is to try it yourself. We recommend trying a VPN with a free trial and a generous money-back guarantee before you lock in a longer subscription. Doing so will allow you to make sure the VPN will work consistently to access your favorite content.
Chris Stobing contributed to this article.