Best VPN Free Trials (Nov 2026): With and Without a Card

The best way to try a VPN for free is the free plan from Proton VPN. It needs no card, has no data cap and never expires. To test a paid VPN in full, NordVPN and Surfshark offer 7-day free trials. Both need a payment method, such as a card or PayPal, and both turn into paid plans unless you cancel in time.

These are different deals, and the difference decides whether you get charged:

• A free plan costs nothing and never ends. It has limits, such as one device, a data cap or a short list of countries.
• A free trial gives you the full paid service for a few days. Most trials need a card, PayPal or an app store account. They become a paid plan unless you cancel.
• A money-back guarantee charges you first and refunds you if you ask in time. For some providers, it is the only way to test.

We checked every free plan, trial and refund rule on this page against the providers’ own pages on 2 November 2026. We have not tested speed or streaming in our lab. So the picks rest on documented terms and our verified provider data.

How each provider lets you try it

On 2 November 2026, the 12 providers we track fell into four groups.

Free plans that need no card:

• Proton VPN: one device, servers in 10 countries and no data cap.
• Windscribe: 2 GB a month, or 10 GB with a confirmed email. Servers in 10 countries on unlimited devices.
• hide.me: one device, 8 server locations and no data cap, with no registration.
• PrivadoVPN: 10 GB every 30 days with a verified email.

Free trials that become paid plans:

• NordVPN: 7 days on 1-year and 2-year plans for new customers in listed countries. You need a card or PayPal. A separate 3-day trial runs through Google Play.
• Surfshark: 7 days on 12-month and 24-month plans, on up to 3 devices. You need a card, PayPal or Apple Pay.
• CyberGhost: 24 hours on Windows and macOS with no payment details. 7 days on iOS and 3 days on Android, with a payment method.
• Private Internet Access (PIA): 7 days for first-time subscribers who sign up in the App Store or Google Play.
• ExpressVPN: 3 days in its iOS and Android apps, through the app stores.

A cheap paid test:

• IVPN: no free plan or trial, but a 1-week plan costs $2 on the Standard tier.

Neither, only a money-back guarantee:

• Mullvad: 14 days, but not for cash or cryptocurrency payments.
• IPVanish: 30 days, on yearly and 2-year plans only.

A VPN free trial with no credit card

You can try a VPN without a credit card in three ways.

Use a free plan. Proton VPN’s pricing page says “No credit card required” for its free plan. Windscribe says the same and lets you sign up “with or without your email”. hide.me goes furthest: “No registration, no sign up required”. PrivadoVPN asks for nothing but “a verified email address”. Proton’s iPhone, iPad and Android apps also have a guest mode, so you can connect without any account.

Take CyberGhost’s desktop trial. CyberGhost offers “a 24-hour desktop trial without using your card” on Windows and macOS. Its trial table lists no payment details for either system. It is the only trial on this page whose provider says it takes no payment details.

Pay with PayPal or Apple Pay. NordVPN’s trial page says you can try it “with no credit card by selecting PayPal as your payment method at checkout.” Surfshark accepts PayPal and Apple Pay for its trial as well. These routes still need a payment method. NordVPN charges the PayPal account when the trial ends, unless you cancel. It also greys out the trial for other methods, such as Google Pay, UnionPay, Sofort and cryptocurrency.

App store trials work differently again. They run through your Apple or Google account. CyberGhost says its mobile trials need a payment method. ExpressVPN says its Google Play trial needs “a valid payment method”. PIA’s page says its mobile trial comes “without any pre-payment”.

What to avoid

Missing the end of a trial. NordVPN and Surfshark trials turn into the plan you chose. NordVPN says you’ll “pay the price shown when you started the trial.” Surfshark says the subscription “will renew automatically” after the trial. Both are long plans billed up front. So a missed date means paying for a year or more at once.

Starting a trial in an app store when you may want a refund. ExpressVPN says app store subscribers “do not have access to the ExpressVPN 30-day money-back guarantee.” CyberGhost’s 45-day guarantee excludes app store purchases. PIA says it can’t refund app store purchases, so you must ask Apple or Google. NordVPN also sends App Store refund requests to Apple.

Free VPN apps that don’t say how they pay for servers. Running a VPN costs money. All four free plans on this page say paid users fund them, and all four say they show no ads. Be wary of a free app that can’t explain where its money comes from. Our guide to whether a VPN is worth it covers what you get for paying.

Trying to repeat a trial. NordVPN’s trial is “available only once to first-time customers with a new Nord Account.” Surfshark takes payment details “to verify you are a first-time user”. ExpressVPN’s Google Play trial can be used once. If you need more time, use a money-back guarantee instead.

Judging a paid VPN by its free plan. Free plans cut devices, data, countries or speed. Proton rates its free speed as “Medium”, and hide.me says free users “don’t have unlimited speeds”. Test the paid service with a trial or a refund window instead.

Setup notes: starting and cancelling a trial

Before you start a trial:

• Check that the trial appears at checkout. NordVPN’s help article lists 15 countries for its trial. Its trial page lists 13 and leaves out Japan and Germany. The trial page also names only Prime plans.
• Pick the plan you would keep. The trial turns into that plan.
• Use a payment method you watch, and put the trial’s end date in your calendar.

Cancelling before you are charged:

• NordVPN: log in to your Nord Account and click Billing. Under Subscriptions, click Cancel next to Free trial. NordVPN emails a reminder of the price before the plan starts. Our NordVPN free trial guide and cancel NordVPN guide give the full steps.
• Surfshark: log in on the website, select your profile icon and choose Subscription. Then turn off auto-renewal. Surfshark says you can also do this in your app store settings. Our cancel Surfshark guide covers refunds.
• App store trials: cancel in the subscriptions screen of the App Store or Google Play. PIA says to cancel “before the seven days are up”. ExpressVPN tells Google Play users to cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends. Our cancel ExpressVPN guide covers its other plans.
• CyberGhost on Windows or macOS: there is nothing to cancel. The 24-hour trial takes no payment details.
• Free plans: there is nothing to cancel either. hide.me’s free plan does not auto-renew.

During the trial, test what you will really use:

• every device you plan to use each day
• the apps and sites you need, at the times you use them
• the kill switch, by turning your Wi-Fi off and on while connected

After the trial, you may still have a refund window. Surfshark says its 30-day guarantee starts when the trial ends. NordVPN says its 30-day guarantee is “separate from the trial”. Ask support for a refund if the VPN fails you.

How we chose

We started from the 12 providers we track. A provider qualified if its own pages documented a free plan or a free trial on 2 November 2026. We then ordered the picks by each provider’s score, which comes from our published methodology. The criteria at the top of the page break ties.

Two free plans made the list. Proton VPN and Windscribe both cover 10 countries. Proton has no data cap, and Windscribe covers unlimited devices. hide.me’s free plan covers 8 locations on one device. PrivadoVPN’s own pages disagree about how many devices its free plan allows, so we could not confirm it.

Four trials made the list: NordVPN, PIA, CyberGhost and Surfshark. ExpressVPN scores well overall, but its only trial lasts 3 days in the mobile apps. Its app store subscriptions also lose the 30-day money-back guarantee. So its refund is a better test than its trial. Our ExpressVPN review covers the rest.

Mullvad, IVPN and IPVanish have no free plan or free trial, so they could not qualify.

Among these picks, we have affiliate relationships with NordVPN, Surfshark and Proton VPN. CyberGhost, PIA and Windscribe pay us nothing, and they are listed on the same terms. Our page on how we make money explains the rules.

Pick by pick: what the verified data says

Proton VPN has the best free plan for most people. It costs nothing, has no time limit or data cap and shows no ads. Its pricing page says “No credit card required”. It covers one device and servers in 10 countries, and Proton picks the server for you. Every Proton VPN app is open source, and Securitum has audited the no-logs policy once a year since 2022.

The free plan leaves out streaming support, BitTorrent, NetShield, Secure Core and split tunneling. Paid plans cover 10 devices and come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Our Proton VPN Free guide covers setup and every limit.

NordVPN offers a 7-day trial to new customers on its 1-year and 2-year plans. Its help article lists 15 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. You need a card or PayPal, and the trial is not available through the app stores. A separate 3-day trial runs through Google Play for first-time Android users in most countries.

NordVPN emails a reminder before it charges you. Its 30-day money-back guarantee is separate from the trial. Our record counted 7,242 servers in 150 countries on 31 October 2026, and every plan covers 10 devices. The trial page names only Prime plans, so confirm the trial at checkout. Our NordVPN deals page shows current prices.

PIA offers a 7-day trial to first-time mobile subscribers. You start it by subscribing in the App Store or Google Play, and PIA’s page says it needs no pre-payment. After the trial, PIA covers unlimited devices, and its apps are open source. Apple or Google handles the billing and any refund, not PIA. On its website, PIA offers no trial, only a 30-day money-back guarantee for new subscribers.

CyberGhost has the only trial on this page whose provider says it takes no payment details. Its trial page offers 24 hours on Windows and macOS “without using your card”. On phones, the trial lasts 7 days on iOS and 3 days on Android, and it needs a payment method. After you buy, plans of 6 months or longer carry a 45-day money-back guarantee. That is the longest refund window we track.

The weak points are the short desktop trial and the refund rules. The monthly plan gets 14 days, and app store purchases are not covered at all. Plans cover 7 devices.

Surfshark is the trial to pick for a household. New users get 7 days on 12-month and 24-month plans, on up to 3 devices. Paid plans then cover unlimited devices. You need a card, PayPal or Apple Pay, and you can start the trial only on Surfshark’s website.

Surfshark says its 30-day money-back guarantee starts when the trial ends. That gives you 37 days to decide. The trial becomes a paid plan automatically, and Surfshark does not state what its longer plans renew at. Our NordVPN vs Surfshark comparison covers the two trial providers side by side.

Windscribe has a free plan that covers unlimited devices, which Proton VPN and hide.me do not. You need no card, and you can sign up without an email. That gives you 2 GB a month. Confirm an email and you get 10 GB. Windscribe’s help article adds that the 10 GB depends on accepting “one or two promo emails per month”. A post about Windscribe on X adds 5 GB a month, once per account. Each friend you refer adds 1 GB a month.

Free users get servers in 10 countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and Romania. Windscribe says it never throttles free users. Pro refunds last only 7 days and require less than 10 GB of use. Our Proton VPN vs Windscribe comparison sets the two free plans side by side.

The other free plans, and providers with neither

hide.me has the simplest free plan to start: “No registration, no sign up required”. It covers one device and 8 server locations, with no data cap. hide.me says free users “don’t have unlimited speeds”, and its streaming servers are for Premium users only. It offers support around the clock to free users too.

PrivadoVPN gives free users 10 GB every 30 days with a verified email. Its free-plan page says the free apps work on “unlimited devices”. Our provider record, taken from its help center, says the free plan allows one connection. Check in the app before you count on more.

ExpressVPN has no free plan. Its money-back page says a 3-day free trial is available “for iOS and Android devices”. On its website, first-time buyers get a 30-day money-back guarantee instead.

IVPN has no free plan or trial. Its cheapest test is a paid 1-week plan: $2 on Standard, $3 on Plus or $4 on Pro Suite. It also refunds within 30 days, once per account.

Mullvad has no free plan or trial. It refunds within 14 days, except for cash and cryptocurrency payments.

IPVanish has no free plan or trial. Its 30-day money-back guarantee covers yearly and 2-year plans only.

Which kind of trial fits your use

• Light use on one device. A free plan is enough. Proton VPN Free has no data cap, so you can leave it on all day.
• A household. Windscribe Free covers unlimited devices, within its data cap. Surfshark’s trial covers 3 devices, and its paid plans cover unlimited devices. Proton’s free plan covers a whole home only through a router, which counts as one connection.
• Streaming. A free plan is a poor test. Proton supports streaming only on paid plans, and hide.me keeps its streaming servers for Premium users. Use a trial or a refund window, and test the exact service you watch. Our best VPN for streaming page lists what each provider claims.
• Phones. PIA’s trial and CyberGhost’s iOS trial last 7 days, the longest app store trials on this page. Remember that app store purchases fall outside several refund policies, as explained above.
• Travel or one specific country. Free plans cover 8 to 10 locations, and Proton picks the server for you. A trial or a paid plan opens the full network. See our best VPN for travel.
• The most time to decide. CyberGhost refunds plans of 6 months or longer within 45 days. Surfshark’s 7-day trial plus its 30-day refund adds up to 37 days.

Related

• Proton VPN Free review: every limit of Proton’s free plan, with setup steps
• NordVPN free trial guide: who qualifies and how to cancel
• Black Friday VPN deals: current prices if you decide to buy
• Is a VPN worth it? and how a VPN works
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