Compare / ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN review

Mainstream VPN, British Virgin Islands · Express Technologies Ltd. (Kape Technologies) · Last checked November 2026

Affiliate disclosure: some links to the platforms on GetVPN.now may earn us a commission if you sign up or pay. It never costs you more, and no platform pays to be listed or to change what we write. How we rate

ExpressVPN is run by Express Technologies Ltd. under British Virgin Islands jurisdiction and has been owned since 2021 by Kape Technologies (formerly Crossrider), which also owns CyberGhost and Private Internet Access. Its no-logs claim has been tested twice in different ways: Turkish authorities seized one of its servers in 2017 while investigating the assassination of Russia's ambassador, and ExpressVPN said it yielded nothing useful; and KPMG gave reasonable assurance on the design of its no-logs controls as of February 2025.

Note what the KPMG report is: a check of how controls were designed on one date, not of how they ran over months. ExpressVPN doesn't offer WireGuard; its own Lightway protocol, rewritten in Rust and audited by Cure53 and Praetorian in 2024, fills that role, with OpenVPN as the fallback.

The ownership story is the main reason some people skip it: Kape's past as Crossrider, and Daniel Gericke, an ExpressVPN executive who in 2021 entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Justice Department over hacking work for the UAE before he joined. ExpressVPN kept him on. There's no free ExpressVPN plan (its team runs a separate free app, EventVPN) but there is a 30-day refund. Compare it in NordVPN vs ExpressVPN and ExpressVPN vs Surfshark.

The facts

Price & refund

As listed on Nov 12, 2026 (US; promos change): Basic, the cheapest of three tiers (Basic, Advanced, Pro), is $2.99/mo on the 2-year plan, billed $83.72 for the first 28 months and then $99.95 a year. The order page's other options for Basic are 12 months (15 months for $74.85, also renewing at $99.95 a year) and $14.99 month to month. First-time users get a 30-day money-back guarantee: you ask support for the refund.^[1]

Owner & jurisdiction

Express Technologies Ltd. runs ExpressVPN under British Virgin Islands law, with its headquarters and registered place of business in the BVI; its privacy policy (updated October 2, 2026) names Kape Technologies PLC (UK) as the ultimate holding company. Kape, which was called Crossrider until 2018, bought ExpressVPN in September 2021 for $936 million.^[2][3]

No-logs audits

KPMG LLP examined ExpressVPN's TrustedServer system and privacy-policy claims as of February 28, 2025, under ISAE (UK) 3000 Type 1, and gave reasonable assurance that its systems functioned as designed; this is a point-in-time check, published June 2025. Cure53 tested EventVPN, the free app from ExpressVPN's team, in February and March 2026 and found one critical issue (Premium unlockable with fake transactions) and high-severity issues including IPv6 traffic bypassing the VPN; its report marks them fixed. Cure53 also reviewed ExpressMailGuard and Identity Defender in March 2026, which ExpressVPN counts as its 27th independent audit.^[4][5][6]

Breaches & incidents

In January 2017 Turkish authorities seized an ExpressVPN server while investigating the assassination of Russia's ambassador; ExpressVPN said it keeps no connection or activity logs and the inspection turned up nothing useful. In 2021 Daniel Gericke, then ExpressVPN's CTO, entered a US deferred prosecution agreement over hacking work he did for the United Arab Emirates before joining; ExpressVPN kept him in the role.^[7][8]

Protocols & free plan

Lightway, ExpressVPN's own protocol, on all its apps and routers, plus OpenVPN over UDP or TCP, and IKEv2 in some automatic setups; ExpressVPN does not support WireGuard. Port forwarding exists only in its router app, and forwarded ports sit outside the VPN tunnel. There is no free ExpressVPN plan, but its team launched EventVPN, a free, ad-supported app on the Apple App Store, in September 2025.^[9][10][11]

Visit ExpressVPN · Compare all platforms