Roughly two in five American adults now use a VPN, according to the most recent US surveys: 42% in Security.org’s August 2026 poll and 43% “have used or currently use” one in a February 2025 YouGov poll for CNET. Users skew male and young, privacy and security are the top stated reasons, and a growing share use free services. Outside the US, the best recent measurements come from the UK, where Ofcom tracked daily VPN users roughly doubling after age checks began in 2025. Global country rankings are older and less reliable than most “VPN statistics” pages suggest.
Main VPN usage figures
| Population | Metric | Figure | Survey date and sample | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US adults | Use a VPN (personal, work or both) | 42% (2025: 32%) | Aug 2026, n=1,008, online | Security.org, 2026 |
| US adults | Use a VPN for personal purposes only | 25% | Aug 2026, n=1,008 | Security.org, 2026 |
| US adults | Have used or currently use a VPN | 43% | Feb 3-5, 2025, n=2,429, YouGov | CNET, 2025 |
| UK (all ages) | Daily VPN users | ~650,000 before Jul 25, 2025; >1.4m mid-Aug; ~900,000 Nov | 2025, Ofcom measurement | Ofcom via The Independent, 2025 |
| UK children 11-17 | Used a VPN in last 3 months | 22% (lifetime: 26%) | May 18-29, 2026, n=2,299 | DSIT/BMG, 2026 |
| Internet users 16-64, 40 countries | Used a VPN or proxy in past month | 30% | Q4 2018, n=138,962 | GWI, 2019 |
| Internet users 16-64, global | Use a VPN for some activity | “nearly 3 in 10” | 2021, GWI data | DataReportal, 2021 |
Two in five US adults use a VPN
Security.org’s annual consumer survey, fielded in August 2026 among 1,008 US adults, found 42% using a VPN on personal devices, work devices or both, up from 32% in its 2025 survey. A quarter of respondents used a VPN for personal purposes only; business-only and mixed use barely moved, so the growth came mostly from private users (Security.org, 2026).
The CNET survey, run by YouGov in February 2025 with 2,429 adults, reached a similar overall figure: 43% had used or currently used a VPN (CNET, 2025). The two polls ask slightly different questions (“use” versus “have used or currently use”), so the closeness of the results is more meaningful than either single number.
Year-to-year swings in single surveys should be read with care. A sample of about 1,000 people carries a margin of error of roughly three percentage points, and question wording changes between editions.
Age and gender of VPN users
Every survey we reviewed found the same two patterns. Men use VPNs more than women:
- Security.org 2026: 50% of men versus 40% of women.
- CNET/YouGov 2025: 50% of men versus 36% of women.
- Globally, a 2021 DataReportal analysis of GWI data found roughly one-third of male internet users aged 16 to 64 used VPNs, compared with less than a quarter of women (DataReportal, 2021).
Younger adults also use VPNs more:
- Security.org 2026: 51% of adults aged 18 to 29, the highest of any age group. Nearly two-thirds of adults 60 and older did not use one.
- CNET/YouGov 2025: 50% of Gen Z and 50% of millennials.
- GWI 2018: in every region, 16- to 24-year-olds used VPNs or proxies more than internet users overall. In Asia-Pacific, 41% of that age group had used one in the past month, against 34% of all users.
Children and teenagers
The most rigorous recent data on young people comes from a UK government study. BMG Research surveyed 2,299 children aged 11 to 17 for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in May 2026 (DSIT/BMG, 2026). Of those children, 58% had heard of VPNs, 26% had used one at some point and 22% had used one in the previous three months. Recent use rose with age, from 14% among 11- to 12-year-olds to 26% among 13- to 15-year-olds and 25% among 16- to 17-year-olds.
Among child users, 64% used a VPN at least weekly, and more than half had started within the past 12 months; 43% said a parent or guardian paid, 36% used a free VPN and 11% paid themselves. Of recent child users, 78% said their parents knew they used a VPN.
The children’s stated reasons were mostly ordinary: keeping activity private (30%), reaching certain sites, apps or games (27%) and watching videos from other countries (25%). Getting into age-restricted sites, apps or games was cited by 22%.
Where VPN use is highest
We could not verify any recent, public, survey-based country ranking. The last detailed one GWI released publicly is from the fourth quarter of 2018; it is a large, transparent dataset, but its figures are historical.
| Rank | Country | Used a VPN or proxy in past month (Q4 2018) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | 55% | GWI, 2019 |
| 2 | India | 43% | GWI, 2019 |
| 3 | UAE | 38% | GWI, 2019 |
| 3 | Thailand | 38% | GWI, 2019 |
| 3 | Malaysia | 38% | GWI, 2019 |
| 6 | Saudi Arabia | 37% | GWI, 2019 |
| 6 | Philippines | 37% | GWI, 2019 |
| 8 | Turkey | 36% | GWI, 2019 |
| 8 | South Africa | 36% | GWI, 2019 |
| 10 | Singapore | 33% | GWI, 2019 |
By region, the same wave showed 34% in Asia-Pacific and in the Middle East and Africa, 30% in Latin America, 22% in North America and 21% in Europe. A 2021 DataReportal summary of later GWI data still described India and Indonesia as places where more than four in ten working-age internet users relied on VPNs (DataReportal, 2021).
The broad pattern holds across sources: VPN use is highest in emerging markets and in countries with heavy content restrictions, and lower in Western Europe and North America. The US surveys above suggest North America has since caught up, but they are not directly comparable with GWI’s monthly-use question.
Germany is a notable gap. Bitkom’s 2025 survey of 1,021 internet users asked how much people spend on security software or services such as antivirus or VPNs (an average of €5.10 a month) but did not publish a separate VPN usage rate (Bitkom, 2025).
Why people use VPNs
Stated motivations differ by survey design, but privacy dominates everywhere.
| Motivation | Figure | Population and date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| General privacy | 56% | US VPN users, Aug 2026 | Security.org, 2026 |
| General security | 51% | US VPN users, Aug 2026 | Security.org, 2026 |
| Reduce tracking / international media | 27% each | US VPN users, Aug 2026 | Security.org, 2026 |
| Protect IP address | 52% | US VPN users, Feb 2025 | CNET, 2025 |
| Save money (mainly streaming) | 23% | US adults, Feb 2025 | CNET, 2025 |
| Access better entertainment content | 51% | Global VPN users, Q4 2018 | GWI, 2019 |
| Hide browsing from the government | 20% | Global VPN users, Q4 2018 | GWI, 2019 |
The 2021 DataReportal analysis of GWI data saw no meaningful link between people’s general privacy worries and whether they used a VPN (DataReportal, 2021). That suggests practical goals such as reaching content may drive adoption as much as abstract privacy concerns do.
Free versus paid
Free VPN use appears to be rising in the US. In Security.org’s survey, 43% of VPN users relied on a free service in 2026, up from 28% in 2025 (Security.org, 2026). Among UK children, 36% of current users had a free VPN (DSIT/BMG, 2026).
Brand recall in the 2026 Security.org survey was led by NordVPN (24% of users), Proton VPN (15%), and Norton VPN and Cisco Secure Client (9% each). The appearance of Cisco’s corporate client is a reminder that many “VPN users” are simply logging into work networks.
What this means for you
- You are not unusual: using a VPN is now mainstream in the US and UK.
- Check what your children use. About one in five UK 11- to 17-year-olds used a VPN in a three-month window, and more than a third of those relied on free apps.
- Be wary of free apps. The growing share of free users matters because free apps carry the highest documented security and privacy risks.
- Be skeptical of precise global numbers. Claims such as “1.5 billion VPN users” usually extrapolate from a single survey percentage. Look for the sample, date and question wording.
Methodology
Only surveys and datasets that could be opened directly as of October 1, 2026 are used, each recorded with its fieldwork date, sample size and question. Sources include Security.org’s 2026 annual survey, the CNET/YouGov 2025 survey, Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 figures as reported by The Independent, the UK government’s 2026 children’s circumvention study, GWI’s Q4 2018 global dataset and DataReportal’s 2021 summary of GWI data.
Surveys rely on self-reporting, and many respondents use a work VPN without thinking of it as “a VPN.” Online panels over-represent internet-savvy people. Different questions (past month, ever used, currently use) produce different numbers, so we do not merge them into a single global estimate. We excluded figures that originated with VPN vendors or affiliate sites when we could not access the underlying methodology, and we found no recent public country ranking with a transparent method.