VPN demand jumps within hours whenever a government blocks a platform, cuts the internet or forces age checks on websites. The biggest percentage spikes since 2023 have come from internet shutdowns and social media bans in countries such as Iran, Mauritius, Mozambique and Senegal, while the biggest absolute increases tend to follow age-verification laws in large, wealthy markets such as the UK. Most surges fade within days or weeks, but each one leaves usage above its old baseline.
The spikes documented from 2020 to 2026 come from provider-published data, regulator figures and app-intelligence numbers reported by the press. A “+8,000%” in one country and a “+1,200%” in another are not directly comparable; the methodology section explains why.
What triggers VPN demand spikes
Four kinds of events reliably produce surges:
- Internet shutdowns and blackouts, often around protests or elections (Bangladesh 2024, Iran 2025 to 2026, Uganda 2026).
- Blocks of a single platform, such as TikTok, X, Telegram, Facebook or Roblox (Albania, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, India, Qatar, Kuwait).
- Elections and political crises, where people install a VPN in anticipation of censorship (Turkey 2023, Cameroon 2025, Tanzania 2025).
- Age-verification and content laws, which push adults rather than activists toward VPNs (France and the UK in 2025, US state laws since 2023).
Timeline of documented VPN demand surges, 2020 to 2026
The events are a selection, and each percentage is an increase over its source’s own baseline.
| Date | Country | Trigger | Reported increase | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-05-21 | Hong Kong | Beijing announces national security law plan | Google searches for “VPN” +1,680% day over day | Verdict, 2020 (citing Google Trends) |
| 2023-02-08 | Turkey | Twitter restricted after earthquake criticism | +15,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2023 |
| 2023-05 | US (Utah) | Pornhub blocks state over age-verification law | Residents searching for VPNs (no figure published) | Salt Lake Tribune, 2023 |
| 2023-06-02 | Senegal | Social media restrictions during unrest | +100,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2023 |
| 2024-07-31 | Bangladesh | Mobile and internet shutdown during protests | +40,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2024 |
| 2024-08-09 | Venezuela | X blocked for 10 days after disputed election | +51,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2024 |
| 2024-10-31 | Mozambique | Disputed presidential election | +127,830% sign-ups | Proton, 2024 |
| 2024-11-01 | Mauritius | Social media blocked before general election | +182,890% sign-ups | Proton, 2024 |
| 2025-01-19 | United States | TikTok goes offline before ban deadline | +520% sign-ups | Proton, 2025 |
| 2025-03-19 | Turkey | Istanbul mayor detained; platforms throttled | +1,100% sign-ups | Proton, 2025 |
| 2025-06-04 | France | Major adult sites block France over age checks | +1,000% within 30 minutes; +400% in observatory | Proton on X, 2025; Proton, 2025 |
| 2025-07-25 | United Kingdom | Online Safety Act age checks enforced | +1,400% hourly sign-ups at peak; daily VPN users roughly doubled | The Register, 2025; Ofcom via The Independent, 2025 |
| 2025-08-21 | Kuwait | Roblox blocked | +900% sign-ups | Proton, 2025 |
| 2025-09-04 | Nepal | 26 social media platforms blocked | +8,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2025; Euronews/AP, 2025 |
| 2025-10-07 | Afghanistan | Restrictions on social media content | +35,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2025 |
| 2026-01-22 | Iran | Brief access after near-total blackout since Jan 8 | +400,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2026 |
| 2026-02-18 | Gabon | Social media suspended during protests | +60,000% sign-ups | Proton, 2026 |
| 2026-04-01 | Russia | VPN crackdown announced | +700% sign-ups | Proton, 2026 |
| 2026-06-16 | India | Telegram blocked ahead of exam retest | VPN app downloads +49% (139,000 to 208,000 a day) | TechCrunch, 2026 (citing Appfigures) |
Shutdowns produce the biggest percentages
The eye-catching numbers almost always come from internet shutdowns in countries where few people used a VPN beforehand. Mauritius (+182,890%) and Mozambique (+127,830%) in late 2024, and Iran’s +400,000% in January 2026, sit at the top of Proton’s records (Proton, 2024; Proton, 2026).
These figures mostly reflect how low the starting point was. If a provider normally sees a handful of sign-ups a day from a small country, a few thousand new accounts produce a six-digit percentage. Such a jump still shows people moving to circumvention tools almost immediately, although it does not mean that more people turned to VPNs in Mauritius than in the UK.
In Iran, sign-ups jumped hardest when limited access briefly returned on January 22, 2026, because people cannot download a VPN while fully offline (Proton, 2026). The same pattern appeared when partial service returned in May 2026 (+25,000%).
Platform blocks: Nepal, Turkey and Roblox
Blocks of individual platforms create sharper, shorter spikes. In the clearest recent case, Nepal’s government blocked 26 platforms, including Facebook, X and YouTube, for failing to register with authorities, and Proton sign-ups rose 8,000% above baseline. The ban was lifted on September 9, 2025, a day after protests in which police killed at least 19 people (Euronews/AP, 2025).
Turkey appears in Proton’s data more often than any other country: the 2023 Twitter restriction (+15,000%), the 2024 Instagram block (+4,500%), the March 2025 detention of Istanbul’s mayor (+1,100%) and September 2025 throttling (+400%). Repeated blocks seem to build a population that already knows how to use VPNs, which may be why later Turkish spikes are smaller in percentage terms.
Gaming was a newer trigger in 2025. Qatar (+420%), Kuwait (+900%) and Algeria (+930%) all blocked Roblox, and sign-ups rose each time (Proton, 2025). Users of such platforms skew young, which raises separate safety questions about which VPN apps children install.
Age-verification laws
Age-verification laws produce modest percentages compared with shutdowns, but they hit big, wealthy markets where many people can pay for a subscription.
In France, when major adult sites withdrew in June 2025 rather than verify ages, Proton said registrations rose 1,000% within half an hour (Proton on X, 2025).
In the UK, Proton reported a more than 1,400% increase in sign-ups after the Online Safety Act’s age checks began in July 2025, and described the surge as sustained rather than a one-day blip (The Register, 2025). Ofcom’s Online Nation report put daily VPN users at about 650,000 before July 25, more than 1.4 million at the mid-August peak, and around 900,000 by November 2025 (The Independent via AOL, 2025). Of all the figures cited here, the regulator’s is the most useful: it measures people, not one company’s sign-ups, and shows both the spike and the partial decline.
Australia’s under-16 social media ban took effect on December 10, 2025. eSafety guidance expects platforms to use signals such as IP addresses and GPS data to detect VPN use and trigger age checks (MediaNama, 2025). No provider or regulator figure for the resulting demand met our sourcing standard.
In the US, local media reported Utah residents searching for VPNs when Pornhub blocked the state in May 2023 (Salt Lake Tribune, 2023). Similar reports followed in other states, but most published percentages come from VPN marketing sites rather than independent measurement, so we exclude them.
Why the same event yields different numbers
For the UK, Proton’s press statement cited a 1,400% hourly increase, its observatory lists +1,200% for the same event, and Ofcom’s daily-user figure roughly doubled. All three can be correct because they measure different things over different windows: a peak hour, a daily comparison and a population estimate.
India’s Telegram block in June 2026 produced the same spread across sources. Appfigures counted a 49% rise in VPN app downloads, Sensor Tower saw a 10% day-over-day category increase, and Proton reported registrations 120% above baseline (TechCrunch, 2026).
What this means for you
- Install before you need it. In a full shutdown, app stores are unreachable too. The Iranian data shows sign-ups clustering in short windows when partial access returns.
- Be careful what you grab in a rush. Spikes push little-known free apps up the charts. Check the developer name, the privacy policy and whether the app has an independent security review before installing.
- Expect governments to respond. Russia’s 2026 crackdown and Australia’s VPN-detection guidance show regulators increasingly targeting VPN use itself.
- Know the law where you are. Using a VPN is legal in most countries mentioned here, but not everywhere. Bypassing a national block can carry legal risk in some jurisdictions.
Methodology
All sources were opened and verified on or before October 1, 2026. Proton’s Internet Censorship Observatory pages for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 list the date, country, trigger and percentage increase in sign-ups. Proton does not publish how its baseline is calculated, so its figures are company-reported indicators, not independent measurements. Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 figures on UK daily VPN users are taken from The Independent’s report, Appfigures and Sensor Tower figures from TechCrunch, and Google Trends observations from press reports.
One provider’s sign-ups reflect its own market position and marketing, not the whole market, and percentage increases inflate small baselines. Many widely circulated figures come from VPN companies or affiliate sites with commercial interests; we excluded those we could not trace to a primary dataset. Demand may also have risen after events that are not in the timeline.