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.
Switzerland is an interesting country, and is quite a common place for VPN providers to base their operations because of strong privacy laws. But are there actually any VPNs which offer free use of servers in Switzerland?
The good news is that there actually are some free VPN options that can give you an IP address in Switzerland without needing to pay.
However, as with most free VPN options, there is some kind of tradeoff in terms of limited monthly data use, or collection of user data.
Here’s quick summary of your free options:
- PrivadoVPN (10 GB free data)
- Windscribe (10 GB free data)
- Tunnelbear (500 MB free data)
Let’s look through each option in more detail.
Free Option #1 – PrivadoVPN Free Version (10 GB/month data)
PrivadoVPN is a newer provider that have only been around a few years, but they offer an excellent free version of their service with servers in 8 countries, and one of them is Switzerland.
Here are some features of PrivadoVPN free version:
- 10 GB data use per month on the free plan
- Free servers in 8 countries and 12 locations on the free plan – including Switzerland (Zurich)
- Other free server locations – USA, (New York, Washington DC, Miami, Los Angeles), UK, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Mexico, France, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil.
- Strict zero logs policy, even on the free version
- Based in Switzerland with strong privacy laws
- 1 connection allowed on free version
- Apps for all major devices.
- Email address only required to get free version.
- Paid plans start at $5/month for a 12 month subscription, with servers in 48 countries.
Click here to view a full server list and get started with PrivadoVPN – go to their Pricing page and select their Free Plan.
If would be better if data use was unlimited on the free version, but 10 GB/month is still a really good allowance, and equates to about 300 MB/day.
Free Option #2 – Windscribe Free Version (10 GB/Month)
This is a very similar option to PrivadoVPN’s free offering. Windscribe are a Canadian based VPN service that also offer a free VPN service, with Switzerland one of the free locations you can use.
Here are some features of Windscribe free version:
- 10 GB data use per month on the free plan
- Free servers in 10 countries including Switzerland.
- Other free server locations – USA, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands, France, Norway, Romania.
- Strict zero logs policy, even on the free version
- Canadian based company.
- Unlimited connections allowed even on free version
- Apps for all major devices.
- Only an Email address required to get free version.
- Paid plans start at $4/month for a 12 month subscription.
Click here to get started with Windscribe– go to their Features page and select their Free Plan.
You can double this option up with PrivadoVPN’s free service, to get 20 GB of combined monthly data with a free IP address in Switzerland. When your quota on one service runs out, switch to the other one.
Free Option #3 – Tunnelbear Free Version (500 MB/Month)
We’re coming down quite a long way now, but Tunnelbear are also a VPN provider that that offer a free version of their service, albeit very limited.
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”.
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 Switzerland, so it can be a great option for short term/basic usage.
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 will not go very far at all.
Some VPNs That DON’T Really Offer Free Swiss Servers
A lot of the information you’ll see in search results for free VPNs isn’t great, with lots of misleading or incorrect results returned when you search this query.
Let’s correct some of this by listing some VPN providers which, despite what may appear in search results, do NOT currently offer free servers in Switzerland:
- Hide.me – Again offer a great free version of their service which we’ve covered elsewhere, with free servers in Germany, USA, Canada, Netherlands, but NOT in Switzerland. Swiss servers are on their paid plans only.
- ProtonVPN – A great VPN service that is based out of Switzerland, but don’t offer free Swiss servers at the moment. They do have a free version with servers in USA, Japan and Netherlands, but you need their paid plan for Switzerland servers.
- NordVPN – A longstanding VPN service that often appears near the top of the search results, but NordVPN don’t offer ANY free servers at all currently. You need to pay to use all their servers, though they do have Premium servers in Switzerland.
A lot of VPN marketing and search results equates them having a 30 day money back guarantee to being effectively “free”, because you can pay for a month, and then claim a refund if you don’t like it.
Whilst it’s a nice feature many VPN’s offer now, that’s not my definition of “free”. In this post, I’ve tried to keep it relevant and accurate by including ONLY VPN options which a) Are 100% free to sign up to and use, ZERO upfront payment, and b) Have 100% free Swiss servers that can be used on their free versions.
Premium VPN Options With Servers in Switzerland
All the free Swiss VPN options we’ve listed above have some kind of limitation, whether it’s data caps or privacy/reliability issues.
Therefore if you’re wanting to have a Swiss VPN IP address longer term, it might be better to go for a Premium VPN service. These always offer unlimited use, 24/7 support, access to streaming services, and multiple simultaneous connections that you can’t get with free VPNs.
Thankfully, all Premium VPNs offer at least one server location in Switzerland. Firstly, PrivadoVPN and Tunnelbear both offer excellent Premium versions you can upgrade to if you like their free versions.
Check out the table below for some good options, both from well established VPN providers, and also from some newer, cheaper services (links are affiliate links):
| Provider | Price (12 months paid in advance) | Number of countries offered | Number of Servers Offered | Main Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZoogVPN | $2.99 | 41 | 70+ | Cheap price |
| AtlasVPN | $3.29/month | 40 | 750 | Cheap price |
| TurboVPN | $5/month | 48 | 21,000 | Server choice |
| Le VPN | $5/month | 77 | 120+ | Good country choice |
| ExpressVPN | $8/month | 94 | 160+ | Best country choice |
| ProtonVPN | $6/month | 63 | 1700+ | Reputable brand |
| VyprVPN | $5/month | 64 | 700+ | Speed & Privacy |
| Private Internet Access (PIA) | $3.33/month | 84 | 10,000 | Great value |
| NordVPN | $5/month | 60 | 5400+ | Reputable brand. |
