Some people use a VPN for torrenting, while others do it for reasons far less ethical. Even so, the popularity of VPN over the last years remains unquestionable.
As people become more internet literate, there are more privacy concerns, and different ways to address them emerge. Using a VPN is part of the solution.
Especially during the COVID-19 crisis, the number of VPN users skyrocketed!
If you’re still not sure how relevant VPN is in the online world, we at Webtribunal have prepared the latest VPN statistics to clarify it for you.
Let’s start with some fascinating facts related to VPN!
Fascinating Facts
- 42% of surveyed US adults said they used a VPN in 2026, up from 32% in 2025.
- Privacy (56%) and security (51%) are the reasons US VPN users cite most.
- 51% of surveyed US adults ages 18 to 29 used a VPN, the highest of any age group.
- 43% of surveyed US VPN users relied on a free service, up from 28% a year earlier.
- Paying users reported spending $21 a month on average.
- NordVPN was the most-used named brand at 24%, followed by Proton VPN at 15%.
- 39% of US non-users said they simply did not need a VPN.
- Global internet freedom declined for the 15th consecutive year in 2025.
- IMARC values the global VPN market at $54.1 billion in 2025.
VPN Use in 2026
Start with the headline number, then read what it actually measures. Almost every VPN adoption figure you will find online comes from a different population, year and definition, which is why published rates range from single digits to well over 40%.
1. 42% of surveyed US adults said they used a VPN in 2026.
(Security.org)
That is up from 32% in 2025. Read the scope carefully: the figure comes from an August 2026 survey of 1,008 US adults and counts personal use, work use, or both. It is not a global rate, and it does not mean 42% of Americans run a consumer VPN for their own privacy. The survey was conducted online with an unweighted sample, and it reports a range of plus or minus 3.1 points, which is not the same as a probability-based margin of error. VPN connections were blocked while the survey was taken.
2. A quarter of internet users worldwide had used a VPN in the last 30 days.
(Go Globe)
This is the older global measure, and it sits alongside the US figure above rather than being replaced by it. Different population, different period, different question. Combining the two into a growth story would be the most common mistake on pages like this one.
3. In 2020, several VPN services leaked data covering nearly 20 million users.
(We Live Security)
In July 2020, seven VPN companies that advertised strict no-logging policies exposed 1.2 terabytes of private data, including personally identifiable information for almost 20 million users. It is a documented incident involving those providers, and worth knowing before you trust a marketing claim. It is not evidence that every VPN keeps logs.
Why People Use VPNs
The popular story about VPNs is that people buy them to watch other countries’ streaming libraries. Current US survey data tells a different story, though the older global research on entertainment use is still worth keeping beside it.
4. Privacy and security are the top reasons US VPN users give.
(Security.org)
Among surveyed US VPN users in 2026, 56% cited general privacy and 51% cited general security. Accessing international or non-local media and reducing online tracking were each cited by 27%. Respondents could choose more than one reason, so the figures do not add to 100%.
5. 50% of global VPN users said they used one to access better entertainment content.
(Global Web Index)
Another 34% used a VPN to reach social networks or news services restricted in their country. These are older global findings from a different survey. Because the populations and questions differ, the contrast with the US figures above does not show global users moving away from entertainment; it shows two different samples being asked two different things.
6. 29% of VPN users accessed Netflix each month.
(Global Web Index)
Netflix offers different catalogues by region, and this historical finding captures how many VPN users reached the service in a given month. We have dropped the page’s old assurances about what is and is not permitted, and the claim that Netflix denied blocking VPNs, because neither belongs in a statistics page.
Who Uses VPNs
Two cautions before the numbers. A share of one gender who use VPNs is not the same as a gender’s share of all VPN users, and a region’s share of the global VPN population is not its adoption rate. Both mistakes are common, and both make the totals meaningless.
7. 51% of surveyed US adults ages 18 to 29 used a VPN in 2026.
(Security.org)
That is the highest rate of any age group measured in the survey, and it is the share of that age group who reported using a VPN, for personal or work purposes.
8. 29% of surveyed US men used a VPN for personal purposes only, against 20% of women.
(Security.org)
A further 11% of men and 5% of women used one for both personal and business purposes. These are measured categories from the 2026 survey, which is why this page no longer carries the old 68% and 38% gender split: that figure did not make clear whether it described the share within each gender or each gender’s share of the VPN audience.
9. Two-thirds of the world’s VPN users were in the Asia-Pacific region.
(Statista, Global Web Index)
Those figures describe shares of the global VPN population. Separately, and on a different denominator, 30% of internet users in Asia, the Middle East and Africa reported using a VPN, 23% in Latin America, and 17% each in North America and Europe. The two kinds of percentage cannot be added together or compared directly.
10. Indonesia and India led country-level VPN use at 38%.
(Statista)
Turkey followed at 32%. At the other end, Australia was lowest at 4%, the US and UK at 5% each, and Germany at 6%. These are historical country results with their own survey dates. They are not current rankings, and the 44% figure this page once highlighted for Indonesia came from a different wave than the 38% in its body.
11. 72% of VPN users connected from a PC or Mac and 69% from mobile.
(Global Web Index)
People use more than one device, so these overlap and are not meant to total 100%.
Free, Paid, and Brand Choice
Adoption is only half the market story. What people are willing to pay, and what stops them signing up at all, says more about where the consumer VPN business goes next.
12. 43% of surveyed US VPN users relied on a free service in 2026.
(Security.org)
That is up sharply from 28% in 2025. Among those who paid, the average reported spend was $21 per month, a figure that applies only to paying respondents and not to VPN users generally.
13. NordVPN was the most-used named brand among surveyed US VPN users, at 24%.
(Security.org)
Proton VPN followed at 15%. This is respondent-reported usage in one US survey, not revenue, not global market share, and not search volume. Respondents could name more than one brand.
14. NordVPN was the most searched VPN on Google, with 1.8 million searches a month.
(Comparitech)
ExpressVPN followed with 1.1 million and Hotspot Shield with 1.04 million. These are dated search-volume figures. Search interest, surveyed usage and sales are three different measures, and this page no longer claims any provider “wins” on the strength of them.
15. 39% of US non-users said they simply did not need a VPN.
(Security.org)
Among surveyed US adults who did not use one in 2026, 24% said they did not know enough about VPNs, 19% did not see the benefit, and 18% said VPNs were too expensive. Multiple answers were allowed. Taken together, these are the reason awareness has not turned into adoption: for most non-users the obstacle is perceived relevance, not price.
VPNs During Restrictions
VPN demand does not rise smoothly. It spikes when access changes, whether through a government block, a platform change or a new age-verification rule. The evidence for those spikes usually comes from individual providers reporting their own signups, which is a different kind of data from a population survey.
16. VPN use in Italy grew 150% during the early coronavirus restrictions.
(Historical provider reporting)
This is the clearest dated example on this page of demand moving with events. Treat it as provider-reported telemetry for that period, against that provider’s own baseline, rather than a measure of how many Italians adopted a VPN. The same caution applies to every signup spike reported since.
Privacy, Freedom, and What a VPN Cannot Do
Two things drive VPN adoption: what people fear, and what they are prevented from reaching. A third thing shapes whether a VPN helps, which is what the technology actually does.
17. 73% of US adults said they had little or no control over company data collection.
(Pew Research Center, 2023)
In the same national survey, 67% said they understood little or nothing about what companies do with their personal data. These are public attitudes among US adults generally, not a VPN-user measure.
18. 64% of VPN users worried about how companies use their data, against 60% of non-users.
(Comparitech)
The gap between the two groups is narrower than the marketing around privacy tools implies. This is the page’s original historical comparison and is not updated by the Pew figures above, which asked different questions of a different population.
19. 86% of US internet users had taken steps to remove or mask their digital footprints.
(Pew Research Center, 2013)
Two corrections to how this page used to state it. The population is US internet users, not all US citizens. And it counts people who reported taking steps, such as clearing cookies or using a pseudonym, not people who successfully erased anything.
20. Global internet freedom declined for the 15th consecutive year in 2025.
(Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2025)
China and Myanmar were the worst-scoring environments among the 72 countries assessed, and Russia is among the countries with the steepest declines over the 15-year span. The report covers June 2024 to May 2025 and the countries it assesses account for the large majority of the world’s internet users. This corrects the page’s old claim that China and Russia were the two lowest-ranked countries.
21. 62% of US adults said no-logs operation was very or extremely important.
(Security.org)
The same survey found that 36% incorrectly believed a VPN on its own can protect a device from viruses and malware. That gap is worth stating plainly. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN server and masks your IP address from the sites you visit. It does not replace antivirus software, it does not stop phishing, and it does not prevent tracking that works through accounts you are signed in to, cookies or advertising identifiers. It also does not make you anonymous. It changes who can observe your traffic, which is useful, and narrower than most marketing suggests.
VPN Market Size
Market-size figures are models, not counts, and different research firms define the market differently enough that their numbers should never be strung into one trend line. Here is one firm’s model, stated on its own.
22. IMARC valued the global VPN market at $54.1 billion in 2025.
(IMARC Group)
The same firm forecasts $155.9 billion by 2034, implying a compound annual growth rate of 12.11% for 2026 to 2034. The 2025 value is an estimate and the 2034 value is a forecast. Both come from one vendor’s model of what counts as the VPN market, which includes enterprise deployments alongside consumer subscriptions.
The Wrap-Up
The single most useful thing to take from this page is that VPN statistics are not interchangeable. A US survey of 1,008 adults, a global panel study, one provider’s signup telemetry and a research firm’s market model are four different kinds of evidence, and stacking them together is how a page ends up claiming a trend that nobody measured.
What the current evidence does support is straightforward. US adoption rose to 42% of surveyed adults in 2026, privacy and security outrank streaming as stated reasons, younger adults use VPNs most, and free services took a larger share of users than the year before. Demand still spikes when access changes somewhere in the world. And a VPN remains a narrower tool than the marketing suggests: it changes who can see your traffic, and it is not antivirus, anonymity, or an end to tracking.
