Does Proton VPN Work in China?

Does Proton VPN still work in China?

For some people, on some servers, but more of the October 2026 reports we found from users in mainland China say Proton VPN failed than say it worked. Proton VPN’s general manager, David Peterson, wrote on September 15 that there had been “a major tightening of government restrictions on VPNs” there since September 10.

• What users report. Early in October it worked for some users, often only on particular servers or after changing settings, and failed for others, including two in Beijing. The users we found writing from China on October 15 or later all said it didn’t work for them. Each report is a single person on a single network, not a test; the threads are listed further down.
• What Proton says. When it added its China server in September, Proton wrote that it can’t guarantee Proton VPN will always work reliably inside mainland China. On September 30, its support team wrote that “enhanced government blocking of VPNs” was making connections harder than usual. In a February 2023 blog post, Proton said it had “yet to find a way to consistently bypass the GFW”, China’s Great Firewall.
• Reviews. The Food Ranger, a blog that earns commissions, wrote on October 2 that Proton “usually got around restrictions pretty well” the few times its author used it in China, without saying when. Unusual Nomad (affiliate links) hasn’t tested Proton in China recently and calls it worth considering as a second VPN. VPN Passport (affiliate links) listed it as partly working when it last checked, on August 11.
• User-submitted tests. People in China post speed tests of Proton VPN to GreatFire Circumvention Central, which has results from October 2026.

Proton VPN settings for China

Proton’s advice for China is to use its Stealth protocol, keep alternative routing on and be ready to try servers in several countries. That comes from its China guide and from Peterson’s September 2026 thread on X, which Proton’s support team later pointed users to.

Stealth works in Proton’s apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad and Android TV, and in the Linux app once Proton Protocols is switched on, according to Proton’s protocol guide. The free plan includes it.

Proton VPN not working in China

When Proton VPN won’t connect in China, Proton puts it down to government blocking that has cut off many of its servers since September 10, 2026, so trying other countries matters as much as switching protocol. In replies to users on September 17 and 18, Peterson wrote that switching protocol isn’t enough when the whole subnet a server sits on is blocked.

The steps under “If it stops working” come from Proton’s China guide, its support team’s September 30 reply on Reddit and Peterson’s thread. The thread also said which server countries paid users were getting through to, as of September 15:

• Hardest: popular choices such as Germany, Switzerland, Singapore and the UK had “extremely low connection success rates”.
• Better: most users still reached US servers, though probably after trying several cities.
• Best: the strongest results seemed to come from Sweden, Bulgaria, Russia and Ukraine. Some users had also connected to servers in Korea, Morocco, France, China, Peru, Japan, Hong Kong, Syria, Afghanistan and Iceland.
• Worth a try: less common countries that Chinese users rarely pick, which he listed by country code.

That puts Singapore, one of the nearby locations in Proton’s China guide, among the hardest to reach in September.

On Reddit, users who got through often did it by hunting for a server that still connected. In September, a Japanese server (JP#341) connected on one user’s phone over mobile data but not on their iPad, and a Colorado server (CO#49) later worked on the iPad too. On October 15, in a thread about CO#49 going down for maintenance, another user’s working server changed several times in a day: Washington, then Arizona, then nothing, then a Secure Core route through Switzerland that connected only now and then, then CO#49 again.

Does free Proton VPN work in China?

Sometimes, depending on which free server you get. Peterson wrote on September 17, 2026 that Proton’s free servers in Mexico, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland were “largely inaccessible” from mainland China, that results in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania were mixed, and that “very high volumes of Chinese users” were still connecting to its free servers in the USA and Japan.

What Proton says the free plan includes:

• Servers in 10 countries, picked at random from the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Canada and the US. Hong Kong isn’t among them.
• No choice of country in most apps. Peterson wrote that free users can pick their server country only in the Linux app, or in a separate WireGuard app using Proton’s configuration files.
• One device at a time, no data limit and no ads. The pricing page lists the free plan’s speed as “medium”.
• Stealth and the kill switch, which Proton says are open to all users.

October reports from free users are thin. On October 4, a user in the r/shanghai thread who sticks to free VPNs wrote that TunnelBear and Proton “worked for some days” before they moved to another app. On October 8, a user in an r/chinatravel thread wrote that Proton’s free version “worked like a charm” after their paid NordVPN failed, without saying when they were in China. Whether the free plan connects for most people in China now is not confirmed.

Proton VPN China server

Proton has had a China server location since September 3, 2026, but it’s meant for people outside China who want a Chinese IP address, not for getting past the firewall. The servers are physically in Hong Kong, because Proton runs China as a Smart Routing location served from another country.

In a Reddit post on September 7, Proton said the location is for people abroad who want to reach Chinese services such as Bilibili, Tencent Video, Youku and Mango TV, and that it “is not built for the reverse”. Proton’s China servers page says they’re for paid plans only. Peterson’s September 15 thread did list China among the countries some users inside mainland China had reached, but Proton’s China guide points users there to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore or locations further away.

Proton VPN in China: Reddit reports

Reddit threads from September and October 2026 show more failures than successes for Proton VPN in mainland China. These are the ones with first-hand reports.

• Are China outages usually short-term? (r/ProtonVPN, started September 12): the poster’s Proton had stopped connecting on every device a day earlier. Several users said the same, and a Japanese server worked for some of them for a while.
• Connection issues in mainland China since September 10 (r/ProtonVPN, started September 17): the poster’s phone, laptop and iPad all stopped connecting on the afternoon of September 10. The September server swaps described above come from this thread.
• Recommended settings for Mainland China? (r/ProtonVPN, started September 30): Proton’s support team replied the same day. On October 1, another user expected the disruption to last about a week, easing after National Day.
• It’s working in China again! (r/ProtonVPN, started October 1): the poster’s Android and Windows apps connected again, to Ukraine through Switzerland with Stealth, though not during a Beijing trip days earlier. A user in Beijing replied on October 2 that it still wasn’t working there.
• VPNs in China - what worked for me (2 weeks travel) (r/chinatravel, started October 1): Proton failed for the poster in Beijing, Shenzhen and Jinan. A reply on October 3 said it was fine whenever the Wi-Fi itself worked, and a frequent visitor wrote on October 7 that it hadn’t worked in the places they go.
• Has anyone found a VPN that works in China in 2026 (r/shanghai, started October 3): two users said Proton works for them and three said it didn’t, one of them in Beijing on October 10.
• What VPNs work in Mainland China now - October-November (r/chinatravel, started October 8): most replies that mention Proton say it failed, among them a user who lives in China and called it “entirely blocked” (October 8) and the frequent visitor, who said it “did not work at all” (October 12). Two said it works: one in Guangxi and Guangdong after “some messing” with protocol settings on a laptop (October 11), and one who found few servers available but a fast connection once made (October 9).
• ExpressVPN does not work in China (r/chinalife, started October 11): two users said that day that Proton works, one of them on a Japanese server.
• What was the most frustrating part of traveling in China? (r/chinatravel, started October 14): on October 15, a traveler with a paid plan said Proton wasn’t working over Wi-Fi. Another said it had worked without problems, set to Canada, on a trip in August.
• Travelling to China for 2 weeks, which VPN + ESIM to use? (r/chinatravel, started October 15): one reply that day says “ProtonVPN does not work”, and another traveler found it “very slow, unusable at some point” on hotel Wi-Fi in September.
• What is the go-to VPN nowadays? (r/travelchina, started October 15): a user in China wrote on October 16 that Proton wouldn’t connect “no matter what config I use”, and got by on a Trip.com eSIM. They wrote on October 20, in another thread, that it still didn’t work.
• Does mullvad still work in china? (r/mullvadvpn, reply on October 24): a traveler wrote that the Proton plan they paid for “doesn’t work at all”, and that a Trip.com eSIM had been “flawless”.

Can you download Proton VPN in China?

Not easily, so install and test it before you fly.

• Proton’s sites are blocked. GreatFire Analyzer found protonvpn.com blocked from mainland China in its latest check, on October 18, 2026. Proton’s account download page, where you make WireGuard files, was blocked when GreatFire last checked it, on April 30, 2026.
• It’s not in China’s App Store. Apple returns no Proton VPN app for the China store, while the US store carries it.
• Android has other sources. Proton publishes its Android app on GitHub (latest release October 22, 2026) and F-Droid. It said in 2020 that it put the app on GitHub so people could still get it where Google Play is blocked.
• Setting up at home matters most. Proton’s China guide calls it “the single most effective measure”: create the account, install the app, sign in and check it connects.

Our guide to getting a VPN onto your phone or laptop for China covers other routes, and is a VPN legal in China? explains what the rules say about using one.

Related guides

• VPN status in China this month
• Why VPNs stop working in China, and what to try
• Which VPN protocols get through the Great Firewall
• Does WireGuard work in China?
• Roaming eSIM or VPN for China