Does ExpressVPN work in China?

As of Aug 11, 2026, we have not yet verified whether ExpressVPN works in China.

Status: unverified
Confidence: low
Last verified: Aug 11, 2026
Method: Vendor china-status page (still dated 2026-02-04, unchanged as of 2026-08-11) advises cycling protocols: Automatic, then Lightway-UDP, Lightway-TCP, WireGuard, OpenVPN, and warns connections may take longer than usual. No newer method guidance exists.

What we're seeing

ExpressVPN's China status page was still dated February 4, 2026 when we checked on August 11, with the same protocol-cycling advice and nothing newer. OONI shows www.expressvpn.com heavily blocked in China all summer (roughly 219 anomalies against 25 OK from June 1 to August 10), which is a website block, not proof about the tunnel. We found no 2026 in-country report of the tunnel connecting or failing (V2EX's newest ExpressVPN thread is from December 2025 and Reddit was unreachable), so the cell stays unverified.

Sources for the above:

vendor (Aug 11, 2026): Fetched in full. Page timestamp still "February 4, 2026" (no update in 6+ months). Tone is troubleshooting ("having difficulty connecting"), implies effortful connectivity but is stale background, not current evidence. 2.
user_report (Aug 11, 2026): OONI community measurements, CN country aggregate (no single ASN pinned; no escalation claimed, so per-ASN decomposition not run). 2026-06-01 to 2026-08-10: ~219 anomalies vs ~25 ok, 0 confirmed, ~16 failures. Vendor website largely unreachable in-country, steady all summer. Caveat: a blocked vendor website does not prove the tunnel fails. Bare host `expressvpn.com` and `api.expressvpn.com` return empty sets (no coverage, not evidence). 3.
forum (Aug 11, 2026): Fetched in full. Most recent V2EX thread mentioning ExpressVPN is 2025-12-01 (a cashback deal thread). No 2026 in-country connect/fail reports on V2EX at all. Absence of discussion, not evidence of status. 4.
news (Aug 11, 2026): Snippet-observed (direct fetch returned only a signup overlay; date and content from search snippets). Published 2026-06-06: general 2026 GFW crackdown reporting, LetsVPN suspended service in April 2026. Not ExpressVPN-specific and >30 days old; background context only.
forum (Jul 22, 2026): Hacker News comment Feb 9 2026 from inside China: the ExpressVPN website never loads; firsthand corroboration of the site block, not a tunnel test

Recent history

Jul 25, 2026: unverified → unverified (First verification pass: website confirmed blocked; last firsthand tunnel reports (2024-2025) were negative but are stale.)

Common questions

Is using a VPN legal in China?

Only government-licensed VPNs are legal. The 2017 rules ban unlicensed services, and authorities have penalized individual users. Enforcement against visitors is rare but not zero. We report availability, not legal advice.

Do VPNs still work in China after the 2026 firewall upgrade?

Mostly no. As of July 2026, Astrill with StealthVPN is the only VPN we verified working. NordVPN and Proton connect intermittently with obfuscation. Most others are blocked or unreliable.

Can I download a VPN from inside China?

Usually not. Vendor websites are blocked in-country and Western app stores are unreachable without a VPN. Install and sign up before you arrive, and carry a backup.