This question is posted ad nauseam, so let’s make a pinned post for easy reference:
The current consensus for working VPNs seems to be Astrill VPN, Mullvad VPN, and LetsVPN.
ExpressVPN, NordVPN, PrivateInternetAccess (PIA), and Surfshark WILL NOT RELIABLY WORK (if at all) in China, regardless of what their advertising or support tells you.
Outside of commercially-available VPNs, there are many V2ray and Shadowsocks providers. These protocols have the benefit of being faster and more lightweight, but are not intended for anonymity. I encourage users to suggest providers with working V2ray/SS(R) servers.
Leaving the comments open for VPN discussion. The body of this thread will be updated as situations change or a new consensus is reached.
Said Goodbye to China after 6 weeks, Manoeuvring between Shanghai & Nanjing.
Let’sVPN - No issues & worked across all our devices.
Astrill - Worked without issue on laptop PC & Android mobile phones. On both iOS & Android tablets the kids had it occasionally had issues while watching YouTube or gaming - solved by choosing a different server.
Mullvad - Worked fine for most of our visit. The last week issues occurred across all devices except mobile phones. Our tablets showed that external servers would become blocked each day - resolved by choosing another server that would work. PC would initially connect but once accessing sites blocked by The Great Firewall the app would disconnect & reconnect repeatedly.
Nord VPN - Worked with help from Tech support once on android laptop. I wrote it off unwilling to use competitors VPN to allow support to get it going again.
Express VPN & Surfshark purchased, installed before arriving China - No success on all attempts across devices.
Family travelled with and all of the above were tested across 3 Android laptops, 2 Android mobile phones, 2 android tablets, 1 iOS tablet.
I’m by no way tech savvy. We just went prepared to ensure kids & ourselves had access to everything we normally would outside off The Great Firewall.
Using 2 vpns is key at least for me, im using v1vpn and letsvpn they both work well and having 2 is useful if one stops working you can use the other
Going to China in 2 days. Equipped with V1, LetsVPN and Mullvad. Fingers crossed.
Shanghai, Nanjing & several 4th tier cities inbetween, since mid March to now the following working no issues - Let’s VPN, Mullvad & Astrill. These have been tested & continue to work on 3* Android mobile phones, 2* Android Tables, 1*Apple tablet, 2 * laptops with win10 & win11.
The following are useless - NordVPN, Express VPN & Surfshark - all claim to work but all attempts and various setups were fruitless.
Will update again when leaving in a few weeks.
Hey /u/bailsafe/ as a fellow mod I should warn you that every single time we get threads about VPNs the many “I have a free referral code” bots will eventually come and flood the comments with their spam. You’re gonna have to clean up this thread for years (sometimes they comment on threads as old as five years on /r/shanghai/). To anyone looking for advice in the comments be aware that anythign with a free trial or referral link is with near certainty automated spam.
Astril is broken for the past 6 month and they don’t do updates for 5 year, also it’s 3 times more expensive then other options, lazy greedy team
I’m in China for a month in a random tier 4 city and just got here yesterday. I got a 3HK esim for my phone which worked perfectly as soon as I arrived in Beijing.
I got a platinum subscription of LetsVPN and also set up a couple proxies on Google Cloud (HK, JP, and SG) and Oracle (U.S. west). These are the stats from speedtest.cn on residential wifi:
| Provider |
Location |
Protocol |
Down (Mbps) |
Up (Mbps) |
Ping (idle, ms) |
| None |
|
|
642.85 |
50.17 |
15 |
| LetsVPN |
HK |
|
135.6 |
68.77 |
17 |
| Oracle Cloud |
US West |
Hysteria2 |
5.76 |
28.29 |
420 |
| GCP |
HK |
Vless-Reality-uTLS |
335.02 |
67.11 |
605 |
| GCP |
HK |
Outline (SS) |
298.09 |
92.38 |
524 |
| GCP |
Japan |
Outline |
310.18 |
74.54 |
306 |
| GCP |
Singapore |
Outline |
339.19 |
91.35 |
512 |
| 3HK roaming (China Telecom LTE) |
|
|
23.86 |
36.07 |
85 |
TL:DR: Use 3HK and LetsVPN. GCP and Oracle are unusable from the locations I tested.
As a college student in China, I have some tested many VPNs, and after a while, these are the ones that work most of the times.
- Cloudflare Warp+: works for iPhones, but not for Android – reliable speeds, but unable to open Netflix
- LetsVPN: works, but the ping is over the top sometimes
- V2Ray (Clash): find a good local provider that gives timely updates, it’s a game of cat-and-mouse after all. Imo it is a bit of a hassle to set up but proven to be reliable when the other big-name VPNs are down, I really like to work with SG/JP servers because of the low ping. You can do your research by searching 机场 on Google and checking the reviews.
- Astrill: known as the ass-drill; slow speeds, very expensive
Some other VPNs that work according to my other sources (haven’t personally tested them yet): Veee, Mullvad VPN, Leaf VPN, Surfshark (but you must pay additional subscriptions for it to work)
Surfshark WILL NOT RELIABLY WORK (if at all) in China, regardless of what their advertising or support tells you.
I literally just tried SurfShark based on their Black Friday Deal. I searched Reddit and said that their Wireguard Profiles will work. Nope! Doesn’t work at all. Got a refund less than 24 Hours later.
Astrill is expensive, but at least it works, and is super easy. You get what you pay for. Every time I try a cheaper alternative, I always regret it.
As for september, Mullvad works, v1vpn works too, both of them work flawlessly, im using them on 2 android devices and 1 windows computer, all good !
Why does nobody ever mention the prices for VPNs in these threads. It’s so annoying!
How come no one is talking about Nexitally, that’s one of the consistent & most recommended in duyaoss & other developers who regularly post weekly speed tests
Reddit is just limited to those raving about Astrill & Let’s VPN, there are many reliable ones Chinese use to use with Clash & Openclash (recent updates are way too good) in router supporting OpenWRT or just get GL.iNet routers that have native support.
I’m looking for a reliable one supporting Wireguard & a private DNS.
LetsVPN is risky, used it for a year before getting promptly banned. Confronted customer service and they could only say their AI tracked that my devices were being used to do some malicious acts (can’t be proven since I asked them for proof) I suggest to use something else I’m currently using apnetwork (invitations only VPN) its pretty solid so far paid like 248 RMB for a year.
God damn Surfshark! They post their ads everywhere on YouTube but they can’t even work in China!
ProtonVPN’s TCP Protocols all work, and its got Stealth protocol on MacOS, Android, iPhone (I think), and Windows. It’s free as well, and I heard they’ve amde it no longer require sign in if you’re located in China.
Heard Mullvad works as well.
Please recommend a VPN or app that works for Apple TV in China ! Any answer is greatly appreciated.
Just to confirm Mullvad is working like a dream in Jiangsu. Worth the $5 or so a month…Occasionally you will need to switch servers - Albania and The Netherlands seem consistently fast.
I have an old computer which can’t run the Mullvad (or most other premium) VPN apps, but the free Geph one works great, even if the speeds are limited…connects every time. I would actually consider upgrading to their paid service for a similar price to Mullvad.
There’s really no reason to pay for an inflated $$$ Astrill VPN at 3x the price - you’re really just flushing your money down the toilet.
I live in China since 2007, at that time google was ok but soon after that, bye, bye google 
I am using Astrill since 2009, it works perfect since 2009 (except now :), I am using it for around 17 hours from 24, Desktop, Xiaomi Box, Android phones and tablets (kids playing online).
I bought also ExpressVPN around 5 years ago because they had a simple way to install it in a router, it never worked on any of my devices… Till the end I bought an ddwrt router and installed Astrill.
Netflix (US account) is not working anymore on the desktop with an US IP (around 10 months ago), even with the private US ip it doesn’t work, it’s saying that the “password” is incorrect :):) but is working with an Taiwan ip and if you really want the US Netflix and US ip, it’s working on the Xioami TV box and the Samsung tabs.
Today Astrill is working just on the Desktop (12:07 AM China), there is an error on the tab: “We are currently experiencing some DB issues. Server selection will be limited. Please do not contact support and do not re-login for at least 30 minutes. Service will be back to normal shortly” 30 minutes was around 2 hours ago:)
P.S. I have the VIP package and during the years I had several private IP addresses but they never worked well, so, no matter what, Astrill is the best way to go for China, it was tested for 15 years by me.
P.P.S I have also a private VPN made on the server in my office from Europe (connecting with the Windows VPN) but the speed is way too slow.
(I’ll go look for a YT tutorial)