Do you actually need a VPN in India?
Think about how much of a stay in India runs on Wi-Fi that is not yours: the hotel, the hostel common room, the cafe with the laptop crowd, the coworking space, the airport lounge between flights. Every one of those networks is shared with strangers, and everything you do on them crosses hardware you know nothing about. A VPN encrypts what you do on all of them, and it helps keep banking, email and other cautious services treating you as if you never left home.
Things also break at inconvenient hours when you are abroad. Both of our picks run 24/7 support over live chat and email, so there is help at 2am: NordVPN and Surfshark both answer around the clock.
What a VPN does and does not do in India
It does three things well. It encrypts your traffic, which is the whole point on shared Wi-Fi. It lets you appear to be connecting from home, which helps home services behave as if you were still there. And it puts the devices you carry under one subscription, ten of them on NordVPN and unlimited on Surfshark.
Three things it does not do. First, it is not a promise of access: the authorities block certain websites, including some news sites, no VPN provider guarantees a way past state filtering, and this page makes no promise about reaching any of it. Second, it is no help during an internet shutdown: short-term, localized shutdowns are relatively common in India, and when the network itself is switched off there is no connection to protect, whatever software you carry. Third, it does not make a connection faster: encryption adds a small overhead, so if a page promises quicker Wi-Fi with a VPN, it is telling you what you want to hear.
Why our picks have no servers in India
In 2022, new government rules required VPN companies operating servers in the country to store their customers' names, email and IP addresses, and identity and payment records for five years. Rather than comply, NordVPN, Surfshark and other major providers removed their physical servers from India. For services whose entire promise is that they keep no logs, that was the consistent choice, and it is worth more than any marketing claim: when the rules demanded their users' data, they took the machines away instead.
What it means for you is less than it sounds. Inside India, your VPN works normally: you connect to servers in nearby countries or back home, exactly as you would anywhere else. And if you ever need the reverse, an Indian connection while you are abroad, both picks offer a virtual India location, an Indian IP address served from hardware that sits outside the country. Check the location list in the app for what is currently on offer.
Recommended VPNs for India
NordVPN, our pick for a trip
NordVPN is the cheaper of our two picks on a one-month plan, $14.99 against Surfshark's $16.45, which makes it the natural choice for a holiday or a work trip measured in weeks. One plan covers 10 devices, the apps are quick to install and easy to switch off and on as you need, and its no-log policy passed an independent audit in 2025. Every plan carries a 30-day money-back guarantee, so a trip is long enough to decide whether it stays on your phone.
Surfshark, our pick for long stays and households
Surfshark allows unlimited simultaneous connections, so one subscription covers every phone, laptop and tablet you travel with, and anyone you share a place with, at the same time. That suits a stay that stretches to months rather than weeks. It is the cheaper option on the 12-month and 24-month plans, its no-log policy was also independently audited in 2025, and it carries the same 30-day money-back guarantee.
Server networks and speeds
Speed for a traveller mostly comes down to distance: the closer the server, the shorter the detour your traffic takes, and the less speed you give up. Because our picks keep no physical servers inside India, your nearest options sit in neighbouring countries, so expect a slightly longer detour than usual. The exception is when you specifically need to appear at home, for your bank or your email, in which case you accept the longer detour for that session.
We publish no speed numbers, because they would tell you more about the cafe you sat in than about the VPN. The 30-day money-back guarantees on NordVPN and Surfshark are the honest way to test both on the connections you will actually use.
How to choose between them
The differences that matter fit in one table, and the last row is the promise you should not believe anywhere.
| Feature | NordVPN | Surfshark |
|---|
| 1 month | $14.99 | $16.45 |
| 12 months, total upfront | $65.88 | $50.85 |
| 24 months, total upfront | $94.23 | $67.23 |
| Devices per plan | 10 | Unlimited |
| Virtual India location (Indian IP, hardware abroad) | Yes | Yes |
| Kill switch and auto-connect | Yes | Yes |
| Audited no-log policy | Yes (2025) | Yes (2025) |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
| Guarantees access to blocked sites | No | No |
Priced per month, NordVPN wins only on the one-month plan. Commit for a year or two and Surfshark is the cheaper subscription, and the unlimited device allowance is the deciding factor for anyone settling in with a household of electronics.
Setting up before you travel
Do the setup at home, on Wi-Fi you trust, before the airport. Install NordVPN or Surfshark on each device, sign in, and connect once to confirm everything works. Then turn on two settings both apps include: the kill switch, which stops your traffic travelling unprotected if the VPN drops, and auto-connect, which brings the VPN back up when your connection returns. On networks you join dozens of times a day, those two toggles do the remembering for you.
One more note for India specifically: local SIMs and eSIMs there are famously cheap and generous with data, and both apps work on mobile data as well as Wi-Fi, so the same setup you did at home covers the local SIM too.
Final recommendation
For a trip measured in weeks, NordVPN is the pick: the cheapest way in at $14.99 for a month, 10 devices covered, and a 30-day guarantee that outlasts most holidays. For a long stay, a household, or anyone committing to a year or more, Surfshark costs less over time and covers unlimited devices.
Buy either one for what it actually does in India: an encrypted connection on the shared Wi-Fi you will use constantly, from providers that walked their machines out of the country rather than log what you do. That is the product. Access to anything India blocks was never part of it, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
