Best no-logs VPN (2026): ranked by audits, raids and court cases

On the evidence, Mullvad and Private Internet Access have the best-proven no-logs claims, followed by Proton VPN, ExpressVPN and NordVPN. The first two have had their claims tested by police and courts; the other three rest mainly on repeated independent audits, with one real-world test each.

Every VPN says it keeps no logs, so the claim on its own tells you nothing. This ranking uses only things you can check: raids, seizures and court cases where someone with legal power went looking for user data, and audits by named firms, judged on how recent and how deep they are. It covers the ten providers we review. For the method behind it, see our guide to checking a no-logs claim.

How did we rank the no-logs VPNs?

Real-world tests count most, because they show what a provider had when it mattered. Audits come next, weighted by recency, scope and the auditor’s standing. Breaches and past logging count against.

1. Real-world tests. A police raid, server seizure or court case where the provider was asked for user data and had none to give. These are rare and can’t be staged.
2. No-logs audits. An outside firm checks the servers and procedures against the privacy policy. The best are recent, repeated, by a well-known firm, and say what was in scope.
3. Security record. A breach doesn’t prove logging, but it shows how well the systems holding your traffic are run.
4. Ownership and law. Who can be compelled, and by whom. The EFF warns that “depending on jurisdiction, a government can demand that data or issue a subpoena for it”, in its guide to choosing a VPN¹.

Which VPN has the best-proven no-logs policy?

These five, in order. Each has at least one real-world test and either a strong audit record or the hardest test of all, a police search.

1. Mullvad: police searched the office and left with nothing

On April 18, 2023, Swedish police came to Mullvad’s Gothenburg office with a warrant to seize computers holding customer data. Mullvad says² it explained that no such data existed, and the police left with nothing. Since September 20, 2023 its VPN servers run entirely from RAM, per its migration post³, so nothing is written to disk for a seized server to give up.

Its audits are security audits rather than reports titled “no-logs”: Cure53 tested staging servers set up like production in June 2024 and found no way to compromise users’ anonymity, per Mullvad’s report post⁴, and X41 D-Sec reviewed the account and payment code in late 2025, per Mullvad⁵. You can pay cash, per its pricing page⁶, at €5 a month.

• Pick it if you want the provider whose claim survived a search warrant.
• Skip it if you need port forwarding, streaming apps or a free plan. See our Mullvad review.

2. Private Internet Access: tested in US courts, twice

In a 2016 FBI bomb-hoax case, the complaint says a subpoena to PIA’s then owner produced only that the IP addresses used were on the US east coast, TorrentFreak reported⁷. In a 2018 federal hacking trial, PIA’s general counsel testified that it keeps no logs of customers’ activity, per TorrentFreak⁸. When Russian authorities seized some of its servers in 2016, PIA said no data was compromised, per The Register⁹.

Deloitte Audit Romania has reviewed PIA three times, most recently completing on December 19, 2025, per PIA¹⁰; the full reports go to customers, not the public. Its Q4 2025 transparency report¹¹ lists 30 legal requests and no data produced.

• Pick it if courtroom evidence matters most to you, and you want port forwarding.
• Skip it if you’d rather avoid a US-based provider or Kape Technologies. See our PIA review.

3. Proton VPN: five audits in five years

Securitum has audited Proton VPN’s no-logs policy every year since 2022. The fifth, from May 20 to 27, 2026, found nothing indicating logging of browsing, DNS queries, destinations, traffic or records linking users to activity, per CyberInsider¹³ and Proton’s audit page¹².

Its one real-world episode involved Proton Mail, not the VPN: in 2021 a Swiss order compelled Proton to log a French activist’s IP address, The Record reported¹⁴, and Proton’s CEO said Swiss law treats VPNs differently. Citing proposed changes to Swiss surveillance rules, Proton has been moving infrastructure out of Switzerland, per heise¹⁵.

• Pick it if you want the most regular audit record and a free plan to start.
• Skip it if you want a VPN-specific court test. See our Proton VPN review.

4. ExpressVPN: a seized server that held nothing useful

In 2017 Turkish authorities seized an ExpressVPN server while investigating the assassination of Russia’s ambassador; ExpressVPN said the inspection found nothing useful because it keeps no connection or activity logs, per TorrentFreak¹⁷. Its servers run on RAM under a system it calls TrustedServer, per its features page¹⁸. KPMG gave reasonable assurance on its no-logs controls as of February 28, 2025, per ExpressVPN¹⁶.

Against that: in 2021 Daniel Gericke, then its CTO, entered a US deferred prosecution agreement over hacking work for the UAE before he joined, and ExpressVPN kept him on, per Euronews and Reuters¹⁹.

• Pick it if you want a seizure-tested provider with a Big Four report.
• Skip it if the CTO episode or Kape ownership rules it out for you. See our ExpressVPN review.

5. NordVPN: the longest run of assurance reports

NordVPN has had six no-logs assurance engagements: PwC in 2018 and 2020, then Deloitte, whose sixth ran over a month at the end of 2025 and was published in February 2026, per TechRadar²⁰. The fifth, per Nord Security²¹, also covered P2P servers.

Its real-world test was unwelcome: in March 2018 an attacker got into one server at a Finnish data center through an insecure remote-management system left by the data center; NordVPN said the server held no user activity logs, and the breach became public only in October 2019, TechCrunch reported²².

• Pick it if you weigh repeated audits by Big Four firms most heavily.
• Skip it if the slow 2019 disclosure bothers you. See our NordVPN review.

How do the other five compare?

Windscribe has strong real-world tests but no assurance audit; Surfshark and CyberGhost have Deloitte reports but no court tests; IVPN’s no-logs audit is from 2019; and PureVPN once logged a user into an FBI case.

6. Windscribe: court-tested, not audited for logging

In Greece, CEO Yegor Sak was personally charged after a Windscribe server was allegedly used in a 2023 intrusion; the case was dismissed on April 11, 2025, with Windscribe saying it had no logs to provide, per CyberInsider²⁵. In February 2026 it said Dutch authorities seized a server and found only a RAM-run system with no logs, per its no-logs page²⁴. But in 2021 two servers seized in Ukraine ran a legacy unencrypted setup that exposed an OpenVPN key, per Windscribe²⁶. Its audits are penetration tests, most recently by Packetlabs in 2024, per its audit page²³. It also says what it keeps: the last date you used it, a 30-day bandwidth total and app versions. See our Windscribe review.

7. Surfshark: audited, but breached in 2026

Deloitte’s second no-logs assurance report, published June 2025, covered standard, static and multiport servers, per Surfshark²⁷, and on November 12, 2026 Surfshark published a newer KPMG no-logs assessment³⁶ under ISAE 3000 covering server configurations, temporary login data and staff access controls. In August and September 2026 an attacker reached a misconfigured internal test server, build credentials and a proxy; Surfshark says no user data or VPN services were affected, per its incident report²⁸. See our Surfshark review.

8. CyberGhost: three Deloitte reviews and detailed reports

Deloitte Audit Romania has assessed CyberGhost three times, the latest completed in late 2025, per CyberGhost²⁹, though its posts don’t state the period covered. Its Q1 2026 transparency report³⁰ lists 53,533 DMCA notices and 4 police requests, with no user data handed over. We found no court test on record. See our CyberGhost review.

9. IVPN: one no-logs audit, in 2019

IVPN’s only no-logs audit was by Cure53 in March 2019, and it says it won’t commission more, relying on yearly security audits instead, per its 2026 audit post³¹. The latest, published November 9, 2026, found five issues in its account-linking system, all fixed, per IVPN³². Its privacy design is strong; the no-logs paperwork is old. See our IVPN review.

10. PureVPN: the counter-example

In 2017 PureVPN’s records helped the FBI identify a Massachusetts man in a cyberstalking case: according to the FBI affidavit, PureVPN matched the same customer to his home and work IP addresses, while advertising “NO logs”, TorrentFreak reported³³. It has since had audits, including one announced in 2020 in a post titled “KPMG Validates PureVPN No-Log Claims” (PureVPN³⁵), and a 2023 server assessment, but its current page³⁴ names no auditor and publishes no report. See our PureVPN review.

How do all ten VPNs’ no-logs records compare?

The table puts each provider’s latest no-logs audit beside its most relevant real-world test. “None found” means we found no raid, seizure or court case on record, not that one couldn’t happen.

Does “no logs” mean a VPN keeps no data at all?

No. Every provider keeps something to run accounts and payments; “no logs” normally means no record of which sites you visit or which IP address you used when. Read the privacy policy for the exact list.

Windscribe, for example, says it keeps the date you last used the service, your bandwidth over 30 days and which app versions you activated, per its no-logs page²⁴. The EFF warns that “a VPN company might log your data if it doesn’t specifically rule it out in its privacy policy”, in its Surveillance Self-Defense guide¹. Payment data is another trail: Mullvad’s acceptance of cash, per its pricing page⁶, exists for exactly that reason.

Who doesn’t need a proven no-logs VPN?

If you use a VPN for public Wi-Fi or a different location and aren’t worried about anyone demanding records, any reputable provider will do, and the cheapest or easiest may suit you better than the best-tested.

Logging only matters if someone can get at the logs. For everyday use, our Do I need a VPN? guide may be the better starting point. And remember that a VPN is not anonymity: the EFF says plainly that “A VPN is not a tool for anonymity,” and our VPN explainer covers what it does and doesn’t hide.

Which no-logs VPN should you pick?

Pick Mullvad if you want the claim that survived a police search and can live without port forwarding or streaming apps. Pick Private Internet Access if courtroom evidence and port forwarding matter most. Pick Proton VPN for the most regular audits and a free plan, ExpressVPN or NordVPN if you want a mainstream provider with Big Four reports.

If you’re choosing between two, our head-to-heads compare the evidence side by side: Mullvad vs Proton VPN, NordVPN vs PIA and Proton VPN vs NordVPN. For P2P use, see the best VPNs for torrenting.