The best VPNs in 2026

The short answer

A VPN sees all of your internet traffic, so the real question is which company you trust with it. Tunnelcheck doesn't run a speed lab. We rank on documents anyone can check: who owns the service, what independent auditors found, what happened when police or courts came asking, and what the provider promises in writing. Our method page explains each check.

On that evidence, Proton VPN and Mullvad come out on top. Both publish named audits, both have open-source apps, and both have owners you can identify. NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark are the best-documented mainstream services. IVPN is a small privacy specialist with an unusually open record. Private Internet Access rounds out the list for torrent users who want a court-tested claim.

How we ranked these VPNs

Every provider on this page has a full review with sources. The ranking follows those reviews' verdicts (Strong, Good, Mixed, Weak or Avoid) and then weighs the points below. No provider can pay for a place, and services with no affiliate program, such as Mullvad and IVPN, rank as high as the evidence puts them. See how we make money.

1. Independent audits Has a named firm checked the no-logs claim, the apps or the servers, and how recently? A yearly series counts for more than a single old report. Our audit tracker lists every audit in our files.
2. Real-world tests Court cases, seizures and police visits show what a provider could actually hand over. Mullvad, ExpressVPN, PIA and Windscribe have records where nothing useful was found. IPVanish and PureVPN have records where customer data was handed over.
3. Ownership and jurisdiction Who owns the service today, whether that's clear, and which country's courts apply. See who owns your VPN.
4. Security design Modern protocols such as WireGuard, a kill switch, and open-source apps that outsiders can read.
5. Policies and price Device limits, P2P rules, refund terms and prices read from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-13. A price we couldn't read lowers nothing in the ranking, but we say so.

Six of the seven picks have a Strong verdict in their reviews. PIA's verdict is Good, and it sits last for that reason.

Why each VPN is on the list

1. Proton VPN

Proton links five consecutive annual no-logs audits by Securitum, from 2022 to 2026. All of its apps are open source. In 2024 Proton's founders gave shares to the Swiss non-profit Proton Foundation, which is now its largest voting shareholder and has a veto over any change of control. Paid plans cover 10 devices and include P2P servers with port forwarding. The one well-known legal case, in 2021, involved Proton Mail: Swiss authorities ordered Proton to log a French activist's IP address. It shows Proton isn't beyond the reach of courts, though it wasn't about the VPN. The 1-year price of $2.99 a month rises to $83.88 a year at renewal.

2. Mullvad

Mullvad's no-data claim faced a real test in April 2023, when Swedish police came to its Gothenburg office to seize computers holding customer data. Mullvad says none existed, and the officers left with nothing. Cure53, X41 D-Sec, Radically Open Security, NCC Group, Assured and Leviathan have audited its apps and systems. You get an account number instead of an email login, and you can pay in cash. The price is €5 a month on every term. The trade-offs are features: five devices, WireGuard only, no port forwarding and a 14-day refund.

3. NordVPN

NordVPN has six no-logs assurance reports: PwC in 2018 and 2020, then Deloitte every year from 2022 to 2025. VerSprite tested its apps in 2021 and Cure53 its servers in 2022. Its record includes a breach: a rented server in Finland was accessed in March 2018, and NordVPN didn't disclose it until October 2019. The audit reports sit behind a customer login, and its pricing page refused our reader, so we can't print a checked price.

4. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN names KPMG, PwC, Cure53 and Praetorian among its auditors and said in May 2026 that it had completed 27 independent audits. Its Lightway protocol is open source. A server seized by Turkish investigators in 2017 reportedly held no useful logs. Against that: Kape Technologies has owned it since 2021, a senior executive was revealed that year to have done hacking work for the UAE, and a Windows bug leaked some DNS requests from 2022 to 2024 before it was fixed. Its order page showed us prices only in Israeli shekels.

5. Surfshark

Deloitte checked Surfshark's no-logs claim in 2023 and 2025, and the 2025 report is a public PDF. Cure53 and SecuRing have tested its extensions, apps and servers, and no breach or court case involving user data has been reported. One subscription covers unlimited devices. It ranks below NordVPN mainly because the two share a parent company, and its audit history is shorter. It offers no port forwarding.

6. IVPN

IVPN's founder owns 100% of the Gibraltar company, Cure53 audits it every year, and its transparency report lists 39 requests since 2016 with no data provided. Sign-up needs no email, and it runs no affiliate program. It sits lower here because it suits a narrower group: 58 locations, no streaming guarantees, no port forwarding and a higher monthly price. In August 2026 its own Bitcoin payment node was robbed; IVPN says no customer data was involved.

7. Private Internet Access

PIA is one of the few VPNs whose no-logs claim has been tested in court, in US cases in 2016 and 2018. Its apps are open source on GitHub, Deloitte has checked its servers three times, and it allows P2P on every server with port forwarding on some. It is US-based and owned by Kape, and we found no published audit of its apps.

Which VPN should you pick?

If you're choosing between two of these, our comparisons go deeper: Proton VPN vs Mullvad, NordVPN vs Surfshark, NordVPN vs ExpressVPN and Proton VPN vs NordVPN.

Why some well-known VPNs rank lower

These services all have reviews on Tunnelcheck. They aren't on the list because the record has a gap the seven picks don't.

• CyberGhost (Good): three Deloitte no-logs reports, but no published app audit, no court-tested record and seven devices.
• TunnelBear (Good): Cure53 security audits since 2016, but no no-logs assurance report, McAfee ownership and a narrow refund policy.
• Windscribe (Good): a Greek court case dismissed with no logs to give, but only one third-party audit on record, with the auditor unnamed, and a 7-day refund.
• IPVanish (Mixed): three recent no-logs audits, but in 2016, under an earlier owner, it gave US investigators a user's IP address and connection times despite a no-logs policy.
• PureVPN (Mixed): no-log audits since 2019, but in 2017 it linked a customer's home and work IP addresses for the FBI, under the same owner it has today.
• PrivateVPN (Mixed): useful features and a low price, but no independent audit and no named owners behind the company.
• Hotspot Shield (Weak): no independent no-logs audit we could find, unclear ownership and a 2017 FTC complaint about its free app.
• Opera VPN (Mixed): the free version covers only the Opera browser, the audits Opera cites aren't published and VPN Pro runs on an unnamed partner's servers. Tunnelcheck isn't affiliated with Opera.

What to check before you pay

• The renewal price. Low prices usually need a one- to three-year term and rise afterwards. Our VPN prices page shows what each provider's own page said on 2026-11-13.
• The refund rules. They range from 7 days (Windscribe) to 45 days (CyberGhost and Hotspot Shield), and app-store purchases follow the store's rules.
• What you actually need. A VPN hides your traffic from your internet provider and the Wi-Fi you're on. It doesn't make you anonymous, and it doesn't make copyright infringement legal. See are VPNs legal? and VPN vs proxy vs Tor. After installing, run a leak test.