Which VPNs work in 
UAE?
As of Aug 11, 2026, none of the 10 VPNs we track is cleanly working in UAE. 6 are partially working with the right settings; the table below shows what each one needs.
Working alternatives in UAE
No VPN is currently verified as working in UAE. We would rather say that than guess. Check back after the next weekly verification pass.
The situation in UAE
As of August 11, 2026, no VPN we track is verified cleanly working in the UAE, and CyberGhost moved to blocked after the vendor itself confirmed its service no longer works there. Both major ISPs, Etisalat and du, block the websites of every major VPN vendor we measured (OONI, June through early August), so travelers need apps installed and accounts created before arrival. Six providers remain partially working with the right settings, generally Stealth-class obfuscated protocols or manual OpenVPN over TCP; on Etisalat, Proton's sign-in infrastructure is blocked too, so set Proton up before landing. ExpressVPN, Windscribe and Astrill stay unverified: nothing dated confirms their tunnels in either direction.
Full status table for UAE
| VPN | Status | Confidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surfshark | degraded | medium | surfshark.com is blocked on both major UAE ISPs (OONI: Etisalat/e& consumer network AS5384 anomalous as recently as 2026-08-05; du AS15802 anomalous on every measurement through 2026-07-21). Sign up and download before arrival. Vendor restricted-network guidance applies: NoBorders mode, protocol changes, or manual OpenVPN setup. |
| PureVPN | degraded | low | www.purevpn.com is blocked on both major UAE ISPs as of early August 2026 (Etisalat/e& AS5384: 0 OK / 18 anomalies 2026-07-01 through 2026-08-06; du AS15802: 0 OK / 2 anomalies). Tunnel functionality is unconfirmed either way. Install the app and create the account before arrival, since the vendor site is unreachable on both networks. |
| ExpressVPN | unverified | low | www.expressvpn.com is blocked on both major UAE residential ISPs per OONI (Etisalat/e& AS5384 and du AS15802, zero OK July through early August 2026) while datacenter networks reach it fine, so new users on residential lines likely cannot reach download or signup pages. No OONI coverage exists for api.expressvpn.com, so the website-vs-service split cannot be made, and no dated in-country tunnel report exists in either direction. |
| Private Internet Access | degraded | low | No automatic obfuscation for the UAE; vendor's Restricted Region Guide offers only a manual OpenVPN config path (the current Mac guide prescribes TCP with RSA-4096, surfacing port 501 where our July note recorded 443) and the in-app Shadowsocks multi-hop as a last resort. No dated user confirmation that either path currently works on Etisalat or du. |
| Astrill | unverified | low | No current in-country evidence either way. Astrill markets StealthVPN as anti-DPI and keeps a live UAE (Fujairah) server page, but publishes no UAE-specific dated guidance. OONI has zero measurements of astrill.com in the UAE, so we cannot even say whether the vendor site is reachable on Etisalat or du. |
| CyberGhost | blocked | medium | No obfuscation or stealth mode on any server, so no fallback once DPI flags it. CyberGhost told Comparitech its VPN no longer works in the UAE. Website blocked on both major UAE ISPs (OONI through late July 2026; Etisalat consumer probes appear as AS5384, not the AS8961 previously filed). |
| NordVPN | degraded | low | nordvpn.com is blocked on both Etisalat/e& (AS5384, DNS plus HTTP-level interference) and du (AS15802), so install and log in before arrival. Plain NordLynx reportedly fails under UAE DPI; obfuscated servers (Settings > Advanced) are the documented workaround. NordWhisper is claimed to help but is Windows/Android/Linux only; that claim is affiliate-sourced and unconfirmed by users. |
| Windscribe | unverified | low | Windscribe's restricted-country guidance (KB 'Troubleshooting Connection Issues in Restricted Countries', dated 2025-11-28) names UAE/Dubai as a region where IKEv2 and OpenVPN often get blocked and recommends Stealth, WireGuard or WStunnel, with no guarantee any combination keeps working. Amnezia WireGuard (announced for early 2026) is not yet referenced in that KB. |
| Proton VPN | degraded | medium | Use Stealth or OpenVPN-TCP on port 443; default WireGuard and OpenVPN-UDP have a long failure history on both du and Etisalat. New finding: on Etisalat, Proton's control-plane host api.protonvpn.ch is itself blocked (OONI, near-daily anomalies June 1 to July 19), so first-time sign-in or server-list fetch may fail on Etisalat even where the tunnel would work. On du the API host is clean; only the marketing site is blocked there. Set the app up before arrival. |
| Mullvad | degraded | low | WireGuard-only since 2026-01-15 (OpenVPN fully removed). Vendor's restrictive-locations guide (updated 2026-04-22) names the UAE explicitly and tells users to enable anti-censorship methods one by one: WireGuard port changes, LWO, QUIC, Shadowsocks-over-WireGuard, UDP-over-TCP. No UAE-specific recommendation is given and no in-country report confirms which of these actually connects on Etisalat or du. mullvad.net itself is blocked on both major residential ISPs, so download, signup and payment need a working circumvention channel first. |
Legal status: VPN use is legal in the UAE, but using a fake or third-party IP address to commit a crime or evade detection carries fines of AED 500,000 to 2,000,000 and possible imprisonment under Federal Decree-Law 34 of 2021. (source)