Best free VPN UK 2026: which free plan has no data cap, whether VPNs are still legal in the UK and what renewal costs

A VPN is an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server run by the provider. Everything you send and receive goes through it, so the network you are on stops seeing where you go, and the site you visit sees the server's IP address instead of yours. That is all it does, and it is plenty: it keeps hotel, airport or shared-house Wi-Fi out of your traffic, and it stops a site linking your visit to your home address.

Of the well-known providers, the free plan that does not cut you off by gigabytes is Proton VPN Free view ›: its page states no data or speed limits, no ads and no logs. Many free plans from well-known providers hand out a few gigabytes a month and stop when they run out, or show ads, or slow you down, and the serious ones say which in their own terms.

The small print of Proton's free plan is not hidden: it sits in the same pricing table. One device connected at a time, medium speed and servers in ten countries that the service chooses. Put simply, it protects your connection, and it is not for choosing which country you appear to be in.

Using a VPN is legal in the UK. The question comes up because of the Online Safety Act: since 25 July 2025, Ofcom requires sites and apps that allow pornography, and other content harmful to children, to run strong age checks, and ticking a box to say you are over 18 is no longer enough (ofcom.org.uk, read on 28 September 2026). The obvious next question was whether the government would restrict VPNs.

It answered in July 2026. In its response to the Growing up in the online world consultation, the government wrote: we will not ban or age-gate VPNs. Instead it will ask Ofcom to research what more services can do to detect and mitigate circumvention, including via VPNs, it expects services to take robust steps to prevent, detect and respond to underage circumvention, and it will produce guidance for parents (gov.uk, government response published July 2026 and updated on 19 August 2026). The age-check duty sits with the sites, not with the tool you connect through.

Two limits that are not about the law but about contracts: the terms of some streaming services forbid getting round their country restrictions, and doing it can cost you the account without costing you a fine; and at work, connecting a personal VPN to a company laptop is usually against internal policy. Both are in agreements you have already accepted.

The number on a VPN advert is the first term divided into months. NordVPN's checkout in pounds, with the United Kingdom as tax country, shows it plainly on 28 September 2026: the two-year plan runs 27 months, three extra months included, and then renews every year at a price written in the same checkout. Basic is £69.93 for those 27 months, £2.59 a month, and renews at £104.28 a year; Complete is £91.53, £3.39 a month, and renews at £163.08. Both before 20% UK VAT, which the checkout adds to each charge: Basic comes to £83.92 on the day you pay, Complete to £109.84.

Keep Basic for three years and you pay the first term plus one renewal, £174.21, which is £4.84 a month before VAT, not £2.59. Complete comes to £7.07, not £3.39. That is not a trick in the small print: NordVPN's pricing page says the introductory price is valid only for the first period and that renewal prices may be higher. Proton writes the same structure for VPN Plus, a first charge for 24 months and then a renewal every 12 months, but with the United Kingdom as billing country its checkout offered euros, US dollars or Swiss francs, not pounds, so its figures are not in the calculator.