Would a VPN even work in Myanmar?
This is the question the page has to answer first, and the honest answer is that we do not know, and neither does anyone selling you one. Freedom House rates Myanmar's internet environment among the most restricted anywhere. In June and July 2024 the authorities blocked access to major virtual private networks, alongside an encrypted messaging app. In January 2025 a cybersecurity law was adopted which, among other provisions, placed limits on the operations of VPN providers and introduced local data retention requirements.
In practice that means a VPN which works perfectly on your home Wi-Fi may simply fail to establish a connection once you are in Myanmar, and it may work one week and not the next. Neither NordVPN nor Surfshark makes a promise about connecting from inside the country, and we are not going to make one on their behalf.
What a VPN still does, if it connects
Set the blocking aside for a moment, because the ordinary reasons hold wherever you are. A VPN encrypts your traffic, which matters on hotel, cafe and guesthouse Wi-Fi you have no way of vetting. It lets you appear to be connecting from home, which helps banking and other cautious services behave as they normally would. And one subscription covers every device you carry, ten of them on NordVPN and an unlimited number on Surfshark.
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 it does not do
Four things, and the first two matter more here than almost anywhere else we write about.
It is not a promise of access. No VPN provider guarantees a way past state filtering, and this page makes no promise about reaching any particular site or service from inside Myanmar. It is no help during an outage either. Local internet shutdowns have been frequent, and telecommunications infrastructure in parts of the country has been badly damaged. When the network is off there is nothing for a VPN to protect.
It does not make a connection faster: encryption adds a small overhead, so a struggling connection will struggle slightly more with a VPN running. And it does not guarantee that any particular service will behave the way it does at home.
How the two compare
The differences that matter fit in one table, and the last three rows are there to name two promises you should not believe from anyone, us included.
| Feature | NordVPN | Surfshark |
|---|
| 1 month | $14.99 | $16.45 |
| 1 year plan, total upfront | $65.88 (12 months billed) | $50.85 (15 months billed) |
| 2 year plan, total upfront | $94.23 (27 months billed) | $67.23 (27 months billed) |
| Devices per plan | 10 | Unlimited |
| Kill switch and auto-connect | Yes | Yes |
| Independently audited no-log policy | Yes (2025) | Yes (2025) |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
| Guarantees access to any blocked site, anywhere | No | No |
| Makes slow Wi-Fi faster | No | No |
| Guarantees a working connection inside Myanmar | No | No |
On a single month NordVPN is cheaper. Over a year or two Surfshark is. On everything else the choice is about shape rather than money: 10 devices and a simple setup on one side, unlimited devices on the other.
If you decide to set one up
Do it before you travel, not after you land. Subscribe, download the apps, sign in and open them once while you are still on a connection you trust, because an app store or a provider's own site may not be reachable later. Put it on every device you are taking rather than just the laptop.
Then treat the 30-day money-back guarantee as the real test. If NordVPN or Surfshark will not connect once you are there, you are still inside the refund window and can ask for your money back. That is the honest safety net, and on this page it is doing more work than usual.
Our honest recommendation
We are not going to push a subscription at you for Myanmar the way we would for a trip to Spain. If you want the encryption on shared Wi-Fi, and you accept that the connection may not work at all, then NordVPN is the simpler month-by-month option and Surfshark is better value over a longer stay and covers unlimited devices. Buy monthly rather than committing to two years, keep the refund window in mind, and go in expecting that it may not work.
If what you wanted was a guaranteed way around blocking, no honest page can sell you one, and you should be wary of any page that says otherwise.
