The Best VPNs for Canada in 2024

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If you live in the Great White North and want to protect your internet connection, or perhaps live outside the region and want to access local Canadian streaming content, a VPN (virtual private network) may be just the ticket. Canada is a global leader regarding the data privacy of its citizens, but a little extra protection certainly can't hurt. We've been testing VPNs for over 10 years and writing about them for more than 25, so we know just the right service no matter where you live. TunnelBear VPN is one of our Editors' Choice VPNs and operates on Canadian soil in Toronto—albeit while owned by McAfee, an American company. Read on for more excellent options, followed by everything you need to know about choosing a VPN in Canada.

How We Pick the Best VPNs for Canada

We picked services with more physical or virtual servers located within Canadian borders. With VPNs, you're more likely to get better performance if you connect to a nearby server, so more Canadian servers should mean better performance and more options for Canadians.

Canada is an especially large country, stretching (like the US) from sea to shining sea. That can present a problem for VPN users though, because the farther you are from the VPN server, the more likely you are to experience internet download speed slowdowns. At the very least, you'll probably see greatly increased latency.

More servers don't necessarily solve this problem, but more server locations might. Much of that will depend on where you're physically located in relation to those servers. Companies with VPN servers on Canada's east and west coasts are more likely to provide lower latency service than companies with just one location in the country.

At PCMag, we test VPN speeds from our offices in New York City, using only US-based VPN servers. In this location, we enjoy above-average quality of service for VPNs. This means our test results won't match those of someone in the US in a less populous region, and especially not another country—even a close neighbor like Canada.

Do You Need a VPN in Canada?

Canada doesn't have as many privacy issues as other popular VPN locales. Unlike the US, Canadian ISPs cannot sell your data without express consent. Unlike China, Canada doesn't have a massive internet surveillance and censorship machine.

This isn't to say surveillance doesn't exist in Canada—it's a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, after all. The CBC also reported that while Canadian ISPs can't sell your data, there are all sorts of ways for information to be harvested and used. That suggests VPNs may still be useful privacy tools in Canada. There is currently a bill working its way through the Canadian legislature that may change these practices, but we won't report anything firmly here until the new laws are signed. Furthermore, online advertisers are everywhere, and you can use a VPN to blunt their attempts at tracking your online movements as well.

How to Unblock Regional Content in Canada

We view VPNs as privacy tools, but many people also use them to access region-locked content online. If a movie or show is available in country X but not where you live, you can tunnel into a VPN server in country X and enjoy it.

In practice, it's more complicated. Netflix, for instance, aggressively blocks VPNs, and other streaming platforms likely have a similar stance. VPNs are frequently tweaking their products to sneak by gatekeepers in an endless streaming cat-and-mouse game.

We periodically evaluate VPN services' ability to let us access Canadian Netflix. As of our last pass in early 2024, 17 of the 22 VPNs we tested in the region had full access an Open Netflix library, while two more were sent to Limited libraries. You can read more about how we classify our Netflix tests in the chart above.

Tips for Choosing a VPN in Canada

Before laying down your hard-earned loonies, here are two things to remember when choosing a VPN.

First, you will always save money by opting for a longer subscription. However, we caution against this—at least initially. Instead, use a free or short-term monthly subscription to test out a VPN in your home environment first. That way, you can find out whether it will work with all the sites and services you need and get a feel for its performance. If you like what you see, you can always upgrade to a long-term subscription afterward.

Second, while a VPN is a useful tool for improving your privacy online, it can't protect against every ill. To really anonymize your traffic, you'll need Tor, but using it will impact your internet speeds far more than a VPN. Also, advertisers and spooks have numerous tools for monitoring online activity, and not all of them are stopped by VPNs.

Just because you're using a VPN doesn't mean you can slack on security in other areas, either. Be sure to use a password manager to create unique and complex passwords for every site and service you use, enable multi-factor authentication wherever it's available, and install local antivirus software.

Ultimately, anyone looking for a VPN with a strong presence in Canada is lucky. After the US and UK, it's one of the most popular regions for VPN providers to focus their efforts. Canadians are also fortunate the need for a VPN is arguably less crucial than it is in many other countries, but there are still privacy gains to be had by using one. If you can't decide whether you need a VPN, our piece explaining what a VPN is and why you need one can help you along.

Max Eddy contributed to this article.