Mullvad VPN is the most uncompromising privacy service we have tested, and it charges one flat rate of €5 per month to everybody. On a nearby New York server it returned 92.4 Mbps down, 91.8 Mbps up and 12 ms of latency, which is fast enough that most people would never notice the tunnel was on. That combination of a serious speed result and a price that never moves is what makes this service worth a long look.
There are no tiers here, no first-year promotion, and no renewal shock in month thirteen. Signing up takes seconds and asks for nothing: no email, no name, no password. The app hands you a random 16-digit account number, you top it up, and that number is your entire identity with the company.
The catch is streaming. Netflix access on Mullvad is a coin toss, the server network is small next to the big names, and there is no free trial, so evaluating it means paying for a month first. This review walks through the pricing, the privacy record, the measured speeds, the security features and the apps, and ends with a plain answer on who should buy it.
We tested Mullvad's current desktop and mobile apps on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, checking connection speed on nearby, mid-distance and intercontinental servers, streaming access on Netflix and other major platforms, torrent throughput, the kill switch and Lockdown mode, split tunneling, multihop, DAITA and the DNS content blockers. Speed figures come from Ookla Speedtest runs against an unprotected baseline on the same line.
Mullvad VPN at a Glance
Mullvad is run from Gothenburg, Sweden, and has sold the same product at the same price since 2009. There is one plan. It costs €5 a month, it covers 5 devices, and it includes every feature the company makes. You will not find an upsell page, a bundled password manager, or an identity-theft add-on, because Mullvad VPN does not sell any of that.
What you get instead is a small, sharply focused product. The apps are open source, the no-logging policy has been tested by real events rather than marketing copy, and the company has published third-party security audits year after year. In our testing the desktop app was clean and modern, and the default connect flow needed no configuration at all to be safe.
The service is also unusually honest about what it does not do. There is no port forwarding. There are no streaming-optimized servers. Support is email only. Mullvad's answer to almost every feature request is that the feature would weaken anonymity or add data it does not want to hold.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- One flat €5 per month rate with no tiers and no renewal increase
- Signup needs no email, no name and no password at all
- Cash, Monero and Bitcoin payments accepted for genuine anonymity
- Repeated independent security audits published since 2023
- Strong nearby-server speeds at 92.4 Mbps down in our testing
- Open-source apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android
- DAITA, multihop and post-quantum key exchange included as standard
- Torrenting allowed on every server in the network
Cons
- Netflix and other streaming services frequently detect and block it
- Only 5 simultaneous connections, half what most rivals allow
- Around 580 servers, a fraction of the big providers' networks
- No free trial, so you must pay for a month to evaluate it
- Email-only support with no live chat
- No port forwarding for advanced torrent setups
- Split tunneling on desktop is configured by IP rather than by app
How Much Does Mullvad VPN Cost?
Mullvad costs €5 per month. That is the whole pricing page. Whether you buy one month, one year or ten years, the rate per month is identical, and the same flat rate has been in place since the company started in 2009. In dollars that lands at roughly $5.77, though the exact figure moves with the euro exchange rate, so the flat €5 is the stable number to plan around.
The industry norm is a cheap first term followed by a much larger renewal, and Mullvad's flat monthly pricing simply refuses to play that game. Against monthly rates elsewhere the gap is wide: Proton VPN Plus is $9.99 per month and NordVPN's monthly Basic plan is $12.99. ExpressVPN sits between $3.49 and $22.99 depending on tier and term, so its headline figure depends entirely on which plan and term you pick.
Paying in cryptocurrency earns a 10% discount, which is the only price variation the company offers. There is a 14-day money back guarantee on everything except cash payments, and Mullvad is upfront that cash cannot be refunded because there is no identity attached to send the money back to.
| What you pay for | Cost |
|---|---|
| Monthly rate, any term length | €5 |
| Approximate USD equivalent | $5.77 |
| Crypto payment discount | 10% off |
| Simultaneous devices | 5 |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days, excluding cash |
| Free trial | None |
One quirk catches people out. Subscriptions do not auto-renew. When the time on your account runs out, the connection simply stops working until you top it up manually. That is a deliberate privacy choice, since auto-renewal would require storing a payment method against your account, but it means you should note the expiry date somewhere.
There is no free trial and no free tier. Evaluating Mullvad means buying at least one month first, and the 14-day money back guarantee is your only safety net unless you paid in cash.
Anonymous Signup and Cash Payment
This is where Mullvad stops resembling every other VPN. Creating an account takes seconds and asks for no personal information at all. The app generates a random 16-digit account number, and that number is the whole login. There is no email field, no password field, and no verification step.
That single design decision cascades through everything else. The company cannot email you a password reset because it has no email address. It cannot link a payment to a browsing session because the account holds no identity. If you lose the number, you lose the account, so write it down before you close the app.
Payment options run from ordinary to genuinely anonymous: cash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, bank wire, credit card, PayPal, Swish, EPS, Bancontact, iDEAL/Wero and Przelewy24. Prepaid 12-month Mullvad cards are also sold as a way to activate an account without handing over any payment identity at all.
To pay in cash, print the account number on the payment slip, seal it in an envelope with the notes, and post it to the Gothenburg office. The time is credited when the envelope arrives, and no card, bank or name ever touches the account.
The one friction point we hit was captchas. Repeated captcha challenges during account creation and payment flows are a genuine usability hurdle, and they arrive at exactly the moment you are trying to move quickly. It is a small tax on an otherwise excellent signup.
What Do You Get for Your Money?
Every feature Mullvad makes is included in the single plan. There is no premium tier holding back multihop or ad blocking. For €5 you get the WireGuard-only tunnel, DAITA traffic-analysis defense, multihop routing, IP-based split tunneling, an always-on kill switch with Lockdown mode, DNS ad and tracker blocking, post-quantum key exchange, and open-source apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. P2P is allowed on every server.
The company also ships Mullvad Browser, a fingerprinting-resistant browser built with the Tor Project, free to anyone whether or not they pay for the VPN. It is not part of the subscription, but it tells you where the company's attention goes.
What is missing is equally clear. There are no dedicated streaming servers, no identity-protection bundle, no cloud storage, no password manager, and no port forwarding. If you have been comparing feature-count tables across the big providers, Mullvad will look thin. The right way to read that is as focus rather than a gap, but only if privacy is what you are buying.
How Fast Is Mullvad VPN? Speed Test Results
Speeds hold up well on nearby servers and drop noticeably over intercontinental hops. On a nearby New York server we recorded 92.4 Mbps down, 91.8 Mbps up and 12 ms of latency, which is close enough to an unprotected line that video calls and downloads felt unchanged.
Distance is the main driver. Connecting to Japan returned 84.7 Mbps down, 80.3 Mbps up and 61 ms of latency, so throughput barely moved while latency roughly doubled. Pushing all the way to South Africa produced 71.2 Mbps down, 65.4 Mbps up and 142 ms, at which point the delay is noticeable in anything interactive.
| Server location | Download | Upload | Latency |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York (nearby) | 92.4 Mbps | 91.8 Mbps | 12 ms |
| Japan (mid-distance) | 84.7 Mbps | 80.3 Mbps | 61 ms |
| South Africa (long-haul) | 71.2 Mbps | 65.4 Mbps | 142 ms |
Averaged across a wider spread of servers, download speeds landed around 53% of the unprotected baseline and uploads around 49%, though retained throughput swings widely by server distance and by the tester's own line speed. On a gigabit connection you will see a much larger absolute drop than on a 100 Mbps line, and the percentage is the more honest number of the two.
Connections stayed stable throughout, with latency low enough for gaming and video calls even though the raw throughput is not class-leading. Mullvad is not the fastest VPN we have benchmarked, and it does not claim to be. It is fast enough that speed will not be the reason you cancel.
Mullvad is not the fastest VPN we have benchmarked, and it does not claim to be. It is fast enough that speed will not be the reason you cancel.
— From our hands-on speed testing
Privacy and No-Logs: How Mullvad Protects You
Most VPNs ask you to trust a no-logs claim. Mullvad has arranged its business so the claim is close to structurally guaranteed. There is no email, no name, no password and no billing identity attached to an account, so even a perfectly honest log would contain almost nothing worth handing over.
The published no-logging policy spells out what the service holds: the account number, the amount of time remaining, and payment records where a payment method required them. Traffic, DNS queries, IP addresses, connection timestamps and bandwidth use are not stored. The company's page on how Mullvad responds to government requests is equally direct about the practical consequence, which is that a valid legal order produces data the company does not have.
You do not have to take the description on faith either. The client and server code is published on Mullvad's GitHub, so the apps can be inspected and rebuilt independently. Very few VPN providers open that much of the stack.
Independent Audits and the 2023 Police Search
The audit trail is long and it is public. Reports have been published across 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 by Cure53, Radically Open Security, Assured, X41 D-Sec, NCC Group and Leviathan Security Group, all collected under Mullvad's third-party audits tag. The 2024 app audit concluded that the app has a high security level, with only non-critical issues found. For the technically curious, the X41 D-Sec audit report is worth reading in full rather than in summary.
Audits are useful, but the more convincing evidence arrived unannounced. On 18 April 2023, Swedish police visited the Gothenburg office with a search warrant. They asked for customer data, were shown that none exists, and the police left empty-handed with no computers seized and no customer information compromised.
That is the test every no-logs policy eventually faces, and very few providers have passed it in public. It is the single strongest reason to take Mullvad's privacy claims at face value.
Swedish Jurisdiction: What It Means for You
Sweden is an EU member and part of the Fourteen Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement, which sounds like a mark against a privacy service. In practice the picture is more favourable than the label suggests, and Mullvad's summary of Swedish law explains why.
Swedish data retention obligations apply to certain telecoms operators, and Mullvad's position is that a VPN provider is not covered by them. The company has also never been compelled to store data it does not collect, which is the practical protection that matters. A jurisdiction only bites when there is something to hand over.
Fourteen Eyes membership tells you which governments share intelligence. It does not tell you what a company can be forced to produce. On a service that holds no email, no IP logs and no name, the answer to a lawful order is the same as the answer to a search warrant, which is nothing.
If you are new to how any of this works, our explainer on what is a VPN covers the underlying mechanics before you weigh up jurisdictions.
Security Features Tested
If the privacy architecture is what keeps Mullvad's records empty, the security set is what keeps your traffic inside the tunnel in the first place. It is small, modern and turned on by default. Nothing important is buried behind an advanced tab, and the app is safe out of the box without any configuration. That matters more than a long feature list, because the settings most people never open are the ones that protect them.
WireGuard and the End of OpenVPN
OpenVPN support was removed on 15 January 2026, leaving WireGuard as the only protocol. The company's post on removing OpenVPN makes the reasoning plain: usage had collapsed, and maintaining a second protocol stack meant more code to audit for a shrinking minority of connections.
Mullvad's case for WireGuard rests on a much smaller codebase, modern encryption, and faster reconnection when you move between networks. Anyone wanting the underlying design can read the WireGuard protocol paper directly.
The trade-off matters for a small group of users. If your network blocks WireGuard, or you rely on a router or device that only speaks OpenVPN, Mullvad no longer has an answer for you. Post-quantum key exchange is available on the WireGuard tunnel, which is a genuinely forward-looking addition at this price.
Kill Switch and Lockdown Mode
The kill switch is always on and cannot be disabled, which we consider the correct default. Because it cannot be turned off, a dropped tunnel stops traffic outright instead of failing open to your normal connection, and there is no setting a curious user can flip to undo that protection.
Lockdown mode goes further. With it enabled, the device cannot reach the internet at all unless the VPN is connected, including during boot and while the app is starting. It is the setting to use on a laptop that must never touch a network unprotected.
Split Tunneling, Multihop and DAITA
Split tunneling works, but on desktop it is configured by IP address and port rather than by picking apps from a list, which makes it noticeably slower to set up than rival apps. On mobile the app-picker approach is available and far friendlier. If you split tunnel often, this is the feature most likely to annoy you.
Multihop routes your connection through two Mullvad servers in different locations, so the entry server never sees your destination and the exit server never sees your IP. It costs speed, as multihop always does, and it is included at no extra charge.
DAITA is the most interesting thing in the app. Short for Defence Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis, it pads and paces your traffic so that packet-size patterns stop revealing which site you are visiting even inside an encrypted tunnel. Mullvad's write-up on DAITA explains the threat model, and no rival at this price offers anything comparable. Getting DAITA and multihop working together did take a few passes through the settings before the combination stuck.
To turn either on, open Settings, then VPN settings, and enable the toggles before you connect rather than mid-session.
DNS Content Blocking
Mullvad includes DNS-level blocking for ads, trackers, malware, gambling, adult content and social media, each as an independent toggle. Blocking at the DNS layer works by refusing to resolve domains on a list, so it applies to every app on the device rather than just the browser.
The limits follow from the same mechanism. Because it operates on whole domains rather than page elements, it cannot strip an ad slot served from the same host as the article you are reading, and a good browser extension will still catch more. The malware list is a useful extra layer rather than a replacement for security software.
Mullvad VPN's Server Network
Those features run on a network that is small by design. Its server list showed 583 servers with 557 of them online when we checked, though the live list changes daily as nodes go in and out of maintenance. Coverage spans 50 countries and 91 cities, and country totals shift as locations are added and retired.
Compare that with Proton VPN's 20,000-plus servers or NordVPN's roughly 9,300 and Mullvad looks tiny. The server network is genuinely small next to rivals advertising tens of thousands of nodes, and there are no dedicated streaming or identity-protection extras layered on top.
Size is not the whole story though. Mullvad labels each server as owned or rented, discloses the hosting provider, and runs a RAM-only, diskless infrastructure. A smaller network you can audit is a defensible trade against a larger one you cannot. What a small network does cost you is choice: if you need a specific city for a regional service, the odds Mullvad has it are lower than with the big providers.
Can You Watch Netflix With Mullvad VPN?
That shortage of choice bites hardest on streaming, which is the weakest part of the service, and it is worth being blunt about it. Netflix and Disney+ access is a coin toss: some sessions load flawlessly and others trip VPN detection on the same server minutes later. Netflix can block the connection outright with a VPN detection error, and BBC iPlayer refuses it too.
Hulu and HBO Max were equally unpredictable, with some servers working and others detected. There is no streaming-optimized server list to fall back on, and support cannot tell you which server is currently unblocked, because the company does not maintain that kind of list.
The reason is structural rather than incompetence. Unblocking streaming at scale means constantly rotating fresh IP ranges and monitoring which platform has blocked what, and that work sits awkwardly next to a business that deliberately holds no data about who connects where. Mullvad has chosen privacy over streaming, and no setting in the app will change that.
If a specific catalogue is your priority, our roundup of the best free VPN alternatives and the Surfshark VPN review are better starting points.
Torrenting and P2P on Mullvad
Where streaming disappoints, torrenting is the traffic type Mullvad treats generously. It is permitted on every server in the network, with no special P2P subset to hunt for and no throttling. Transfers ran fast and smoothly on whichever server we connected to, though variable per-server speeds can cap throughput on a busy node.
The gap is port forwarding, which Mullvad removed and has not brought back. Without it you can still download and seed normally, but you will be a passive peer, and seeding ratios on private trackers that demand connectable clients will suffer. That is a genuine limitation for anyone deep into private tracker communities.
For everyone else, the combination of no logs, an always-on kill switch and P2P on every server is close to ideal. Our guide on how to use a VPN covers the basics of pairing one with a torrent client safely.
Mullvad's Apps: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android
Whatever you use the tunnel for, you reach it through the same product on every platform. Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android all get open-source clients built from the same codebase, and Linux is a first-class citizen rather than a command-line afterthought with a GUI bolted on. Anyone who has fought with a Linux VPN client will appreciate the difference.
The desktop app is clean and modern, and the default connect flow needs no configuration to be safe. A single large connect button dominates the window, the server picker sits behind it, and everything else lives in a settings pane organised by what it does rather than by protocol jargon.
Mobile apps carry the same feature set with one welcome improvement: split tunneling is app-based on Android rather than IP-based, so you can exclude your banking app in two taps. Both mobile apps support the always-on kill switch and DNS blocking.
Ease of Use and Setup
Setup is the fastest of any VPN we have used, mostly because there is no account to create in the usual sense. Download the app, tap to generate an account number, add time, connect. There is no email confirmation, no onboarding wizard and no upsell interstitial.
The learning curve appears later, when you go looking for multihop, DAITA or split tunneling. Those settings assume you know what they do, and the in-app explanations are brief. Mullvad's help documentation fills the gap well, but the app itself will not teach you networking. If terms like tunnelling are new, our primer on what is a VPN tunnel is a useful companion.
Customer Support and Documentation
When the app stops short of explaining itself, the help channels have to carry the load, and here the shape of the service changes again. Support is email only. There is no live chat, no phone line and no ticket dashboard. Replies arrived in about 6 hours during our testing, which is respectable for email but nowhere near the instant answers the big providers offer.
The written documentation is the real support channel here, and it is unusually strong. Guides cover router setup, Linux distributions, the CLI, DNS configuration and the reasoning behind design decisions, and they are written for someone who wants to understand the mechanism rather than follow five numbered steps. Judged as a knowledge base, it answers most of the configuration questions that would otherwise become an email, which is just as well given the response times. Anyone setting up whole-home coverage should read our guide to what is a VPN router alongside Mullvad's own router documentation.
How Mullvad Compares to Proton VPN, NordVPN and ExpressVPN
Against the big three, Mullvad wins on price and anonymity and loses on network size, device count and streaming. That summary holds across nearly every category worth comparing.
| Product | Mullvad | Proton VPN | NordVPN | ExpressVPN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | €5 flat | $9.99 | $12.99 | $3.49 to $22.99 by tier |
| Simultaneous connections | 5 devices | 10 devices | 10 devices | 10 devices (Basic) |
| Server count | 583 servers, 50 countries | 20,000+, 140+ countries | ~9,300, 137 countries | 3,000+, 113 countries |
| Protocols | WireGuard only | WireGuard, OpenVPN, Stealth | NordLynx, OpenVPN | Lightway, WireGuard, OpenVPN |
| No-logs audit status | Audited repeatedly 2023 to 2026 | Independently audited | Independently audited | Independently audited |
| Anonymous payment | Cash, Monero, Bitcoin, no email | Cash or Bitcoin via credits | Crypto, email required | Crypto, email required |
| Netflix unblocking | Inconsistent, often detected | Reliable | Reliable | Reliable |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days, not on cash | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days |
Proton VPN is the closest philosophical match. It is open source, independently audited, has a usable free tier, and Proton credits can be funded with cash or Bitcoin, so the account can be paid for anonymously. It also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, 10 devices and port forwarding. It costs twice as much on the monthly plan and still requires an email address to open an account.
NordVPN is the volume play: 10 devices, roughly 9,300 servers, Threat Protection, Meshnet and reliable streaming. It counts virtual locations alongside physical ones, so published country totals vary between listings. At $12.99 monthly it costs more than twice Mullvad, and it wants an email address. Our full NordVPN review covers where that premium goes.
ExpressVPN sells polish and unblocking reliability through its Lightway protocol and RAM-only servers, with pricing that swings widely by tier and promotional term. It is the easiest of the four to hand to someone non-technical. Nobody buys it for anonymity, since the account is still tied to an email address.
The honest framing is this. Mullvad is not competing with these services on breadth, and comparing feature counts misses the point. It competes on the one axis where it is close to unbeatable: how little the company knows about you.
Who Should Use Mullvad VPN?
Mullvad is an excellent fit if privacy is the actual product you are shopping for. Journalists, researchers, activists, and anyone who wants a VPN that cannot be compelled to reveal what it never collected will find nothing better at this price. Privacy-conscious buyers who resent renewal pricing get the same deal in year ten as in month one.
It also suits technical users who want auditable open-source clients, first-class Linux support and a modern protocol without protocol-selection busywork. Torrent users are well served too, as long as port forwarding is not on their list.
Skip it if you want a VPN mainly for streaming, if you need more than 5 simultaneous connections, if you rely on OpenVPN for a router or older device, or if live chat support is something you expect to use. Those are all reasonable requirements, and Mullvad does not meet any of them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an email to sign up for Mullvad?
Is Mullvad good for streaming Netflix?
What VPN protocol does Mullvad use?
How much does Mullvad cost?
Is Mullvad's no-logs policy independently verified?
Is Mullvad really anonymous?
Is NordVPN better than Mullvad?
Can I use Mullvad in the USA?
Final Verdict: Is Mullvad VPN Worth It?
Mullvad is worth it if you understand what you are buying. €5 a month gets you the most credible privacy posture in the consumer VPN market, backed by published audits, open-source apps, and a police search that produced nothing. The pricing has not moved since 2009, which after a decade of industry renewal-price games is its own kind of statement.
The compromises are not small. Streaming is unreliable, the network is a fraction of the size of its rivals', 5 devices is stingy in 2026, and there is no free trial to test any of it first. If those things are why you want a VPN, spend more elsewhere and be happier. If the flat rate still appeals, the current plan page is a single screen with nothing hidden behind it.
If you do buy in, note the expiry date the day you pay, because nothing will remind you. Mullvad has been consistent about one idea since 2009, and there is no sign of that changing in the year ahead.
