N.B. Some links in this article are affiliate links, and I may receive a commission for purchases made at no extra cost to you.
Italy is a fantastic tourist destination, with great food, great weather and loads of brilliant cities and attractions to visit. But as with visiting every country, long or short term, it’s very important to stay safe online there.
One great way to this is with a Virtual Private Network or VPN, but are there actually and usable, reliable VPN’s with servers in Italy that are also free? Unfortunately, as with most southern European countries, they’re quite neglected regarding free VPN servers, and your options are actually very limited.
Tunnelbear have a free server in Italy, but only 500 MB of data to use per month, and PrivateVPN offer a unlimited 7 day free trial with no payment required.
However, the current search results for this aren’t great, with low relevance results to companies plugging only their own service, or to VPN services that are labelled as “free” in the title, but aren’t actually free when you check the plans.
So in this post we’ll answer the question accurately – giving you the main two 100% free (but not always unlimited) VPN services that can give you an IP address in Italy, before moving onto unlimited, Premium VPN options that you’ll be much better off using for longer term stays in this beautiful country.
Free Option #1 – PrivateVPN 7 Day Trial
This is option could be ideal for a short term holiday or business trip in the country, or just to get the hang of how a VPN works, and upgrade to a full subscription if possible. But this is still a legit option where you can get access to an unlimited VPN service with fast servers in Italy, at least for 7 days, and without needing to register.
PrivateVPN are a Swedish based provider who’s main focus is on their Premium version, but they do offer a limited free trial of their product, with all the benefits you’d get from the full version:
Visit PrivateVPN’s free trial page here. Email their support at support@privatevpn.com to receive a gift code to activate a 7 day free trial of the full service.
Here are some good features of PrivateVPN:
- 200 high speed servers in 63 countries (including Italy – Milan)
- Unlimited server use
- Based in Sweden with strong privacy and consumer protection laws.
- No nonsense, user friendly interface.
- Also despite the cheap price, has an excellent reputation for accessing streaming services.
And also if you decide to upgrade to their Premium version, here are some benefits:
- 36 month plans currently at $1.61/month (effectively 12 months + 24 extra months free). The best long term value on the market.
- 30 day money back guarantee.
For sure it’s only a temporary free trial, but they have an Italian server and it will give you a good look at how a proper VPN service works, plus their paid plans are the best value on the VPN market. Give them a try and see what you think.
Free Option #2 – Tunnelbear Free Version
This is a great lesser known and under-promoted VPN service. Tunnelbear are a Premium VPN provider primarily, but they do also offer a limited free version of their service with a server in Italy, though it isn’t heavily promoted.
Click here to visit Tunnelbear’s site. Click the Tunnelbear logo on the top left to go back to the homepage, and click on “Plans”. If you sign up for the Free account, you get 500 MB of data to use each month.
The Free plan is buried away somewhat in the menus and not heavily promoted, as for obvious reasons, they’d prefer customers used paid plans, but you can still find it by clicking back to the homepage and finding the Plans page.
Tunnelbear’s got servers in 49 countries, including in Italy, so it can be a great option for short term/basic usage. I tested the Italy server from my location in the UK, and it worked fine, with decent page load speeds and videos played fine (though you wouldn’t really want to be using it for this much because of the data cap – see below).
It also feels and works like a proper, secure VPN service, with your own IP and no data logging, unlike some other shared VPN services that I’d never use to enter personal data on.
However, with the free version, you only get 500 MB of data to use per month. You can tweet at them for an extra 1 GB, but this is your main limitation with this service – you don’t get much data/bandwidth to use. Once you open the interface, there is a data counter so you can see how you’ve got left this month. But 500 MB is not going to last very long at all, even for basic use.
Some Less Good Free Italy VPN Options
There are some other free options that sort of act as a VPN, but aren’t really fully legit VPNs from a privacy and security standpoint. They’ll give you an Italian IP address for free, but aren’t really secure or fully private.
Alternative Option #1 – Urban VPN – Is a kind of shared, peer to peer proxy VPN that does have unlimited use and an Italian server location. Users are basically “pooling” or sharing each other’s connections. But be aware this is definitely NOT some watertight, zero logs VPN at all. In fact, it’s specifically stated in their terms of service that your browsing information is logged and stored. Perhaps OK for light use, but stay away if privacy is your concern.
Alternative Option #2 – VAP LAT – Another options that common displays in search results, but checking out reviews, they seem much the same as UrbanVPN – a kind of shared VPN that’s OK for light use, but not for security or privacy conscious users. Doesn’t come across as a legit, fully private VPN. Also only available for Android/iOS.
VPNs That Don’t Have Free Servers in Italy
As with much of the VPN market, the search results for this query are not great, with the first few pages full of inaccurate and misleading results from VPN companies that DON’T really have free servers in Italy, but still advertise or imply this.
For clarity and accuracy, here are some VPN services that, regardless of what the search results tell you, DON’T currently offer free servers in Italy:
- Hide.me – They do offer an excellent free version of their service, with free servers in several countries and a 10 GB/month data cap, but Italy is not one of them. You need their paid plans to access servers in Italy.
- NordVPN – Are an excellent VPN provider, but they don’t have any free servers at all. They do have an Italian server, but you need to pay for all their plans.
- ExpressVPN – Same as NordVPN – no free servers at all. They do have a few Italian servers, but all plans are paid.
- ProtonVPN – Another reputable provider, but their free version only has servers in the USA, Netherlands, Japan. You need their paid plans for Italian servers.
In this article, I’ve tried to stay 100% relevant by listing ONLY VPN’s where you can use Italian servers 100% for free, without any upfront payment or registration required. In this sense, your options are quite limited for Italy, but I’ve tried to stay accurate.
Some Premium VPN Services With Servers In Italy
If you’re going to be staying in Italy longer term, then realistically it’s better to use a Premium VPN service. Moreover, all paid providers will have at least one location/server in Italy – I doubt there’s a single paid VPN service among hundreds in existence now that won’t be able to give you an IP address in Italy, because it’s such a popular country for traveling and has all the common streaming services people might need to access.
We’ve put a table below with a select few well known Premium VPN services for you to compare. But realistically, it doesn’t have to be one of these for Italy, because all paid-for VPN’s will have Italian servers, so just pick any provider you like and go for it, since paid-for VPN’s all do a similar job.
Comparison of VPN’s With Italian Servers (links are affiliate links)
| Provider | Price (12 months paid in advance) | Number of servers in Italy | Number of Devices Allowed | Main Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private Internet Access (PIA) | $3.33/month | 2 (Milan & Streaming Optimized) | 10 | Best value for money |
| VyprVPN | $5/month | 1 (Rome) | 5 | Speed & Privacy |
| ExpressVPN | $8.32/month | 2 (Consenza, Milan) | 5 | Best for streaming |
| NordVPN | $5/month | 60+ (Multiple locations) | 6 | Double Encryption & Server Choice |
| ZoogVPN | $2.99/month | 2 (Milan, Rome) | Unlimited | Cheap no nonsense VPN |
Bottom line – Private Internet Access (PIA) has it covered for cost (ZoogVPN is also great value), NordVPN has it covered for server choice within Italy (60+). ProtonVPN is the best for the number of devices/simultaneous connections allowed (10), along with PIA. The others don’t stand out specifically in terms of Italian servers, but are all great, reliable, unlimited VPN services, where you know your connection is going to be secure, and there’s someone to help you if something goes wrong. If I were staying in Italy long term, I’d get a Premium plan. Personally, I’d go for PIA, with 10 devices, cheap cost and a streaming optimized server specifically for accessing services like Netflix if you need to.
Signing up for a VPN is usually very easy. You simply visit their site (click on one of our links above for each provider), sign up, pay your subscription, download their product and boot up the program.
Once running you simply select a preferred server location and open the VPN connection. You now have a secure, encrypted connection that will keep all your browsing and personal data safe over public Wi-Fi networks.
Best Practices For Using The Internet In Italy
Some quick tips for using the internet in Italy:
- The internet in Italy is somewhat regulated, and there is some censorship, but it’s largely open and free.
- Streaming services within Italy will be limited to those with an Italian IP address, so you’ll need a VPN to access them if you’re not in the country already.
- Using a VPN is legal in Italy, as long as your online activity is also legal.
- Do not use Wi-Fi in any public place (cafe, restaurant, internet cafe, co-working space, Hotspot) without having a VPN connection enabled. It will keep your connection and personal data secure.
