Does Mullvad work in China?

As of Aug 11, 2026, Mullvad is partially working in China.

Status: degraded
Confidence: low
Last verified: Aug 11, 2026
Method: OpenVPN and its bridge mode were removed 2026-01-15; obfuscation now means Shadowsocks over WireGuard, QUIC, LWO or UDP-over-TCP. Vendor guidance (updated 2026-04-22) says the GFW blocks all Mullvad servers in Asia; connect to US or EU servers and try the obfuscation methods one by one. In-country reports put connect success around 50 percent with low speeds.

Verified working in China right now

Astrill (low confidence, StealthVPN (TCP mode) required; install and sign up before arrival (website confirmed blocked in-country, OONI, daily through 2026-08-10); occasional server switching expected.)

Set on Mullvad? It is partially working in China right now. Check the method notes above before you buy. Get Mullvad

What we're seeing

Mullvad removed OpenVPN and its old bridge mode entirely on January 15, 2026, so this cell's earlier Shadowsocks-bridge note described a feature that no longer exists; obfuscation now means Shadowsocks over WireGuard, QUIC, LWO or UDP-over-TCP. The vendor's own restrictive-locations guide, updated April 22, 2026, says the Great Firewall is blocking all Mullvad servers in Asia and tells users to connect to US servers with obfuscation. A Chinese-language test from May 2026 reports roughly 5 in 10 connection attempts succeeding with obfuscation, and a March 2026 in-country review calls it barely usable; the sources disagree on severity, not direction.

Sources for the above:

forum (Aug 11, 2026): Chinese-language Q2 2026 in-country comparison: Mullvad connects "5/10 times," rated medium-to-high connection risk, worse than Surfshark in their test. Methodology is user-feedback based, not rigorous, and the site is likely affiliate-adjacent, but it is dated, China-specific, and differentiates vendors rather than claiming everything works, so it gets modest weight. 4.
vendor (Aug 11, 2026): Confirms OpenVPN (and therefore the old OpenVPN bridge mode) fully removed 2026-01-15. Shadowsocks continues as WireGuard obfuscation. Grounds for updating the stale method notes. 3.
user_report (Aug 11, 2026): In-country reviewer: "Mullvad is now so slow that it struggles even to load my email"; another review titled "Virtually unusable in China." Dated, in-country, first-person, but ~5 months old, so background-weight only. Snippet-observed, not fetched. 5.
user_report (Aug 11, 2026): OONI community measurements, China: mullvad.net shows intermittent anomalies most days (0-7/day) against very low OK counts (0-3/day); www.mullvad.net shows 1 OK/day with 0 anomalies but negligible volume. Volume is too thin to attribute per-ASN, and a blocked/flaky vendor website does not prove the tunnel fails; treated as weak corroboration of partial interference only.
vendor (Aug 11, 2026): Vendor's own restrictive-locations guide: "The great firewall of China is blocking all Mullvad servers in Asia. Try to connect to different cities and servers in the USA instead, using the different obfuscation methods." Lists LWO, QUIC, Shadowsocks, UDP-over-TCP. No bridges, no OpenVPN (WireGuard-only). A vendor admitting blockage is high-credibility for the degraded direction. 2.

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.