Surfshark VPN Review 2026: Tested, Audited, Priced
Surfshark passed all five of our leak tests. It holds an active Deloitte no-logs audit. And at under $3/month on a 2-year plan, it costs less than most of the VPNs we have tested at Privaroo. The question is whether that price comes with trade-offs that matter.
We ran Surfshark on Windows 11 and iOS 18 in June 2026. This review covers what we found — the results, the caveats, and the one area where Surfshark still lags behind the privacy-first tier.
Privaroo rating: 4.1 / 5
Quick Verdict
| Category | Result |
|---|---|
| Leak tests (DNS, WebRTC, IPv6, kill switch) | ✅ Passed all 5 |
| No-logs audit | ✅ Deloitte (2023, 2025, 2026) |
| Infrastructure audit | ✅ SecuRing (2025), Cure53 (2026) |
| Speed retention (US servers) | ✅ ~89% |
| Kill switch | ✅ Functional on Windows and iOS |
| Split tunneling | ✅ Windows and Android (not iOS) |
| Jurisdiction | ⚠️ Netherlands (Nine Eyes) |
| Simultaneous connections | ✅ Unlimited |
| Starting price | $2.29/month (2-year plan) |
| Renewal price | ~$59.99/year after first term |
Best for: Users who want a well-audited, fast VPN at a budget price and are not in a jurisdiction-sensitive situation.
Not ideal for: Journalists, activists, or anyone for whom Netherlands/Nine Eyes jurisdiction is a hard requirement.
Leak Test Results
We ran five leak checks on Surfshark in June 2026 across four US server locations and two European locations. Surfshark produced zero DNS leaks, zero WebRTC leaks, and no IPv6 exposure on any tested server. The kill switch activated correctly in 3 of 3 forced-disconnection tests on Windows 11. On iOS 18, the kill switch held during a simulated network drop, though iOS's native VPN behavior means full kill switch enforcement varies when switching between Wi-Fi and cellular. In practice, Surfshark behaved correctly in all tests we could reproduce reliably on iPhone. The result: Surfshark is leak-free in standard testing conditions across both desktop and mobile platforms.
For the full methodology behind these five checks, see our VPN leak test guide.
Audit Trail: What Has Been Independently Verified
Most VPNs claim a no-logs policy. Far fewer have had that claim independently verified by a firm that will put its name on the result.
Surfshark's audit history as of June 2026:
- Deloitte no-logs audit — 2023: First independent verification. Deloitte confirmed Surfshark does not collect or store IP addresses, browsing history, or connection timestamps.
- Deloitte no-logs audit — 2025: Second verification. Deloitte confirmed the policy remained in place and unchanged.
- SecuRing infrastructure audit — 2025: Verified that Surfshark's server network is protected against unauthorized access and resilient against real-world attacks.
- Cure53 Dausos protocol audit — 2026: Cure53 audited Surfshark's new proprietary protocol. No critical or high-severity vulnerabilities were found within scope. Cure53 recommended continued formal specifications and threat modeling for long-term resilience.
This is a credible audit trail for a budget-tier VPN. The Deloitte repetition matters: a one-time audit proves a point-in-time snapshot; a recurring audit signals an ongoing commitment.
The audit reports are published on Surfshark's trust center. That link is worth bookmarking — a VPN that will not publish its audit reports in full is not audited in any meaningful sense.
Speed: Real Numbers
Speed tests on Surfshark in June 2026 showed 747.7 Mbps download retention from a 940 Mbps fiber baseline — approximately 79% retention on long-distance transatlantic routes. On US-to-US connections, speed retention averaged 89%, consistent with the NordVPN and ExpressVPN results we recorded on the same baseline. Surfshark's WireGuard implementation is its fastest protocol. IKEv2, which Surfshark still offers as an option on iOS, was consistently 15-20% slower in our tests. On mobile networks (4G/LTE baseline), Surfshark added less than 8 ms of additional latency — within normal variation for daily use including video calls and streaming.
In plain terms: Surfshark is fast. On a fast home connection, you will not notice it running. On public Wi-Fi or hotel broadband, where the bottleneck is the network itself, no VPN — Surfshark included — will overcome a slow base connection.
For context on how Surfshark's speeds compare to NordVPN and ExpressVPN, see our best VPN 2026 roundup.
Privacy and Jurisdiction
Surfshark is headquartered in the Netherlands. This is where the audit credibility and the jurisdiction concern point in opposite directions.
The Netherlands is part of the Nine Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement, which includes the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. A Nine Eyes country is not automatically disqualifying — what matters in practice is whether the VPN's architecture would expose anything useful if a legal request arrived.
Surfshark's architecture as audited:
- No connection logs
- No IP address records
- No browsing history or DNS query storage
- RAM-only servers (no data written to disk that persists after a reboot)
If the architecture is what the Deloitte audits confirm it to be, a legal request to Surfshark's infrastructure would yield nothing actionable. That is the correct way to evaluate jurisdiction — not the flag on the headquarters, but what data would actually be available under legal compulsion.
That said: if your threat model requires a VPN domiciled outside the Nine Eyes entirely, Mullvad (Sweden) and ProtonVPN (Switzerland) offer that. Sweden and Switzerland are not part of any Eyes agreement.
Features Worth Knowing About
Unlimited simultaneous connections
Surfshark allows unlimited devices per account. No other VPN we have reviewed in 2026 matches this at the same price point. NordVPN allows 10; ExpressVPN allows 8. This is a meaningful practical advantage for households or users with many devices.
CleanWeb (ad and tracker blocking)
CleanWeb is Surfshark's built-in DNS-level blocker. It blocked ads on 100% of our test pages. It is not a replacement for a browser-level ad blocker like uBlock Origin, but it covers DNS requests that browser extensions cannot intercept.
MultiHop (double VPN)
MultiHop routes your connection through two VPN servers in different countries. This adds latency — in our tests, a MultiHop connection ran at roughly 55% of the single-hop speed — but it provides an additional layer of routing obfuscation. Useful for journalists or users on high-scrutiny networks. Not necessary for typical daily use.
Nexus (IP Rotation)
Surfshark's Nexus feature routes traffic through a network of nodes and can rotate your apparent IP address periodically. We tested this in June 2026. It functioned as described. The practical privacy benefit over a standard single-server connection is modest; the primary use case is avoiding IP-based detection blocks on certain platforms.
Dausos protocol
Surfshark introduced Dausos, its proprietary protocol, in late 2025. The Cure53 audit in 2026 found no critical vulnerabilities. That is a reasonable first audit result. WireGuard remains our recommended protocol on Surfshark until Dausos has a longer public audit history.
What Surfshark Does Not Do Well
Split tunneling is not available on iOS
Split tunneling — the ability to route specific apps outside the VPN — is available on Windows and Android but not on iOS 18. This is an Apple platform limitation that affects most VPNs, but it is worth stating clearly because Surfshark's marketing does not always make the iOS restriction obvious.
The promotional price vs. renewal gap is significant
Surfshark's 2-year plan starts at approximately $2.29/month. The renewal price after the first term is approximately $59.99/year — roughly $5/month. That is still competitive. But the 2x jump from the promotional rate is a pattern we see repeatedly in VPN marketing, and you should budget for the renewal price, not the promotional price.
Customer support response time
We ran three support test queries in June 2026. Average first response time was 4 minutes via live chat. Email support averaged 6 hours. For a paid service, this is adequate but not exceptional.
How Surfshark Compares to Similar VPNs
In Privaroo's independent testing in June 2026, Surfshark, NordVPN, and ExpressVPN all passed five leak tests with zero DNS, WebRTC, or IPv6 exposure. Speed retention on US servers was 89% for Surfshark, 91% for NordVPN, and 87% for ExpressVPN — a difference that is imperceptible in daily use. The meaningful differences are in jurisdiction (NordVPN: Panama; ExpressVPN: British Virgin Islands; Surfshark: Netherlands), pricing (Surfshark is approximately 30% cheaper than the other two on a 2-year plan), and simultaneous connections (Surfshark: unlimited; NordVPN: 10; ExpressVPN: 8). For users whose threat model does not require non-Eyes jurisdiction, Surfshark delivers equivalent security and privacy at a lower price point.
For a side-by-side comparison of NordVPN and ExpressVPN, see our NordVPN vs ExpressVPN comparison.
Is Surfshark Worth It in 2026?
Yes — with the jurisdiction caveat clearly understood.
Surfshark is the best audited budget VPN we have tested at Privaroo. The Deloitte audit history is the longest and most consistent of any VPN under $4/month. Leak tests are clean. Speeds are fast. Unlimited connections is a practical advantage that NordVPN and ExpressVPN do not match.
If you are in the US and your concern is ISP surveillance, public Wi-Fi exposure, or streaming geo-restrictions, Surfshark handles all three competently. If you are a journalist, activist, or high-value target for state-level surveillance, you should be looking at Mullvad or ProtonVPN — not because Surfshark has failed its audits, but because Netherlands jurisdiction is an unnecessary variable when better options exist at similar price points.
Privaroo rating: 4.1 / 5
Key Takeaways
- Passed all 5 leak tests on Windows 11 and iOS 18 in June 2026
- Three independent audits confirm no-logs (Deloitte ×2, 2023/2025/2026), infrastructure (SecuRing), and new protocol (Cure53)
- 89% speed retention on US servers — fast enough to be invisible for most use cases
- Unlimited simultaneous connections — the only VPN in its price range to offer this
- Netherlands jurisdiction (Nine Eyes) — a known limitation for high-threat-model users
- Renewal price doubles after the first 2-year term — budget for ~$60/year, not ~$28
Tested by Morgan — June 2026. Privaroo tests VPNs independently. We may earn a commission if you subscribe through our links. This does not affect our ratings. Surfshark paid no fees for this review.
FAQ
Does Surfshark keep logs?
Surfshark's no-logs policy has been independently verified by Deloitte in 2023 and 2025, with a third verification in 2026. The audits confirmed that Surfshark does not collect or store IP addresses, browsing history, or connection timestamps. This is the most independently verified no-logs policy in the sub-$4/month VPN category as of June 2026.
Where is Surfshark based?
Surfshark is headquartered in the Netherlands, which is part of the Nine Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement. In practice, this is less significant than it sounds — Surfshark's audited no-logs architecture means there is no data to produce under a legal request. However, users who require a VPN outside the Nine Eyes alliance should consider Mullvad (Sweden) or ProtonVPN (Switzerland).
Does Surfshark work with Netflix?
In our June 2026 testing, Surfshark successfully unblocked US Netflix, UK Netflix, and three other regional Netflix libraries from US server connections. Streaming access can change without notice as Netflix updates its detection systems — verify before committing to a subscription if streaming unblocking is your primary use case.
Is Surfshark's Dausos protocol safe to use?
Cure53 audited the Dausos protocol in 2026 and found no critical or high-severity vulnerabilities within the audit scope. That is a positive first result. Our recommendation: use WireGuard for now. Dausos has one audit. WireGuard has been publicly audited multiple times over several years. As Dausos accumulates more audit history, our recommendation may change.
How does Surfshark compare to NordVPN?
Both passed our five leak tests. Speed retention is nearly identical (Surfshark: 89%, NordVPN: 91%). The key differences: NordVPN is based in Panama (outside Nine Eyes), while Surfshark is in the Netherlands (Nine Eyes). NordVPN allows 10 simultaneous connections; Surfshark allows unlimited. Surfshark is approximately 30% cheaper on a comparable plan. For most US users, the practical choice comes down to price and device count.
For step-by-step instructions on how to verify these results yourself, see our VPN leak test guide and our guide on how to check if your VPN is actually working.