Ports are used by our devices to send and receive requests from servers. Each application typically uses a specific port for a specific purpose. If you need to open custom ports to speed up your torrenting or to make your gaming experience more reliable, you may need a VPN that offers port forwarding. Some VPN providers allow you to forward VPN traffic over predetermined ports, while others allow a lot more customizations including dynamic port forwarding.
Since every VPN service offers a different approach to port forwarding, please read the summary for each VPN to determine which provider works best for your needs.
Best Port Forwarding VPN:
- PIA: 82% discount
- Hide.Me
- TorGuard: 10% lifetime discount
- Perfect Privacy
- PureVPN: 88% discount
If you are interested in a more detailed info on the subject, please refer to our article on VPN ports. Here are some of the ports that are useful for your VPN setup:
HTTPS (TLS/SSL) – 443 TCP/UDP
HTTP – 80 TCP/UDP
OpenVPN – 1194 TCP/UDP
PPTP – 1723 TCP/UDP
L2TP – 1701 UDP
SSTP – 443 TCP
Cisco IPsec – 1293 TCP/UDP, 500 TCP/UDP
IPsec/IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange) – 500 TCP/UDP
IPsec Nat Traversal – 4500 UDP
SSH tunnel – 22 TCP
SOCKS proxy – 1080 TCP
Obfsproxy – dynamic (custom setup)
BitTorrent – 6881-6889 TCP
SMTP – 25 TCP/UDP
DNS – 53 UDP
ANNUAL PRICE: 2.69 USD/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 11.95 USD
PIA is a leading no logs VPN service with over 23,000 VPN servers that deliver great speeds and a reliable performance.
PIA offers an easy to install VPN apps for all devices with security and privacy features that protect VPN connection from unexpected data leaks. PIA was once subpoenaed by the FBI and the only information they could provide is that the cluster of IP addresses being used was from the east coast of the United States. The FBI case confirms that PIA indeed does not log any user activity.
For faster streaming, torrenting and gaming, PIA software offers re-routing VPN traffic between different connection types and ports. You have an option to chose between UDP (faster) and TCP connections types that, depending on network, can speed up downloads, with UDP being the preferred choice for torrenting, gaming and streaming. You can also forward all VPN traffic through one of the available port options (dependant on your OS and protocol choice): 443, 80, 110, 502, 501, 500, 1194, 1197, 1198, 8080, 9201 and 53. Additionally, PIA allows port forwarding on all non-US VPN servers, with the predetermined forwarded port that you will get.
If you need to bypass VPN block or speed throttling on a default VPN port, re-routing traffic through port 443 is the most common way to bypass strict firewalls when all the other ports are blocked.
SOCKS5 proxy is another excellent feature that can re-route only certain traffic through VPN tunnel eliminating the need for split tunneling. SOCKS5 is widely used with torrenting software due to its convenience. Once installed on uTorrent, for instance, it works for p2p traffic only.
PIA default implementation uses NAT firewall that does a great job protecting from cyber attacks, built-in kill switch secures from unprotected data leaks. In addition, PIA apps have a DNS and IPv4/IPv6 leak protection for both OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols.
PIA VPN service gives unrestricted and uncensored access to blocked or censored websites. Aside from unblocking various restricted sites, PIA also works with Netflix USA and Netflix UK libraries, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime.
To read a full PIA review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 4.49 USD/mo [promocode]
MONTHLY PRICE: 8.99 USD
Offering over 3,000 servers in 55 countries, all mainstream protocols and top-notch security, TorGuard rightfully earned its place as a top VPN provider.
No logging TorGuard VPN is a reliable, fast and secure service for privacy oriented users. TorGuard offers port forwarding to ports above 2048 and is supported through tunnel types OpenVPN, WireGuard and OpenConnect. Essentially, you can setup custom TCP/UDP ports on each TorGuard server separately that could be finetuned for specific activities. You can use TorGuard to remotely access devices and services, to increase your torrenting speed and minimize gaming lag.
Stealth VPN is a technology that TorGuard uses to bypass Deep Packet Inspection firewalls, such as those typically used at the hotels, airports, restaurants and other public WiFi hotspots to restrict online access. You can also forward all VPN traffic through various TCP/UDP ports if your WiFi restricts default VPN ports. Consequently, TorGuard is a highly recommended VPN service for users who live in the regions with particularly restrictive governments, and would like to unblock censored websites or services.
TorGuard desktop apps have a kill switch feature that actively monitors your Internet connection to protect you from accidental IP leaks when your WiFi is unstable.
Besides a great number of security features and ability to unblock VPN on restrictive WiFi, TorGuard is also an ultra fast VPN service with gigabit servers (actually, 10 Gbps). This infrastructure allows the fastest VPN speeds with a reliable streaming and browsing experience.
Unlike most VPN providers, TorGuard VPN can bypass Netflix proxy error with their Netflix streaming IPs. TorGuard can unblock a number of Netflix regions (USA, UK, Canada, Italy, Germany, Finland, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and Singapore), Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Spotify and virtually any streaming or social media service.
TorGuard is not only one of the best VPN services, it also offers OpenPGP encrypted email service with 2 factor authentication and up to 10Mb free storage.
To read a full TorGuard review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 2.59 USD/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 9.95 USD
Based in Malaysia, Hide.me is one the most secure and fastest VPN providers offering ultra fast gigabit VPN servers that deliver the fastest VPN speeds for users on gigabit Internet connection.
Hide.Me is a no logs VPN service with custom VPN apps that include a number of advanced features for maximum security. Hide.Me VPN has a built-in protection against IP and DNS leaks. Kill switch is an excellent tool to shut down Internet access when the connection to a VPN server is dropped.
Stealth Guard takes this even further by blocking access to predetermined apps even when the VPN is OFF. Essentially, you can configure Hide.Me in a way that makes it impossible to use Chrome browser, for instance, when the VPN is not running. This feature is an excellent addition to protect yourself from accidental mistakes.
Hide.Me offers a dynamic TCP/UDP port-forwarding (UPnP) with up to 10 TCP/UDP ports, and port ranges from 100000 and up. The app dynamically maps a network port whenever one is required by an app, saving you the hassle of manual port forwarding. For security reasons, Hide.Me asks you to create a new “virtual” device for UPnP use, instead of enabling globally for all connections. Port forwarding works well if you need to seed torrents, stream HD content or play games.
The service also allows to forward all VPN traffic through a predetermined port. You can setup OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2 protocols to use custom TCP/UDP ports or randomly assigned ports on every connection. A very useful feature on WiFi networks that throttle VPN speed or block VPN ports.
More so, you can selectively tunnel only specific traffic via secure servers. Split tunneling feature allows this or, alternatively, SOCKS5 proxy can be setup on your browser/torrenting client and re-route only that traffic.
The provider also offers advanced VPN masking tools to bypass strict firewalls, censorship and hide VPN use. Hide.Me masks (obfuscates) OpenVPN traffic with TLS-Crypt so, if your WiFi network blocks VPN by analyzing traffic patterns, this methods can bypass the most advanced firewalls. This setup also encrypts every OpenVPN packet twice, sort of like double VPN encryption.
Hide.Me supports perfect forward secrecy, an advanced security feature that tells OpenVPN to regularly renegotiate private keys. In case the private key of the server is compromised, past session keys will not be compromised. Forward secrecy protects past sessions against future compromises of secret keys, and future sessions against current attacks.
Hide.Me VPN is extremely reliable and very fast which makes it a perfect choice for security oriented users who would like to enjoy uninterrupted streaming and browsing experience.
To read a full Hide.me review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 3.33 USD/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 10.95 USD
PureVPN, based in the British Virgin Islands offshore zone, is a no logs certified VPN service that was independently audited by KPMG – a big 4 auditor. Always-On Audit feature allows KPMG to conduct a thorough surprise audit of PureVPN’s processes and servers at any time without prior notice.
PureVPN has a port forwarding add-on that allows you open any UDP/TCP ports from any device to remotely access your home computer, speed up gaming and p2p seeding. Essentially, you can setup the fireall to block all ports, but for the ones that you want to keep open.
Secure high-speed PureVPN infrastructure offers advanced security features for anonymous Internet use. PureVPN custom apps have a built-in WebRTC, IP and DNS leak protection. Kill switch is feature that guards the users from unencrypted data leaks when the internet connection drops. PureVPN even has a DDoS protection add-on.
Additionally, the provider considered the importance of uninterrupted streaming by introducing Dedicated Streaming add-on that will boost streaming speed and enhance performance. PureVPN optimized streaming servers are best to get a buffer-free streaming experience.
PureVPN is also one of the few VPN providers that can effectively unblock Netflix. For this purpose PureVPN setup dedicated Netflix servers. At the moment the provider can unblock Netflix USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Japan.
In case you want to limit your VPN use to specific websites/services only, Split Tunneling feature lets you decide which applications to send through unencrypted channel and which one to secure with an encrypted VPN service.
Split tunneling is commonly used in case you need a VPN for torrenting only. More so, PureVPN offers 2,000 high-speed VPN servers in 140 countries with over 60 dedicated torrenting servers and a port forwarding feature to maximize your upload and download speeds.
Overall, PureVPN is a great no logs VPN service for privacy and security, to access geo-restricted streaming content, unblock websites and bypass censorship.
To read a full PureVPN review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 9.99 EUR/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 12.99 EUR
Germany based Perfect Privacy is an ultra fast (gigabit servers) VPN provider with a heavy focus on advanced online security. As the name suggests, Perfect Privacy VPN has some of the most secure VPN features for maximum security, privacy and complete anonymity.
Perfect Privacy dedicated VPN servers run on RAM, not the hard drive, to secure your anonymity and privacy. This setup ensures that the data is automatically wiped during reboot or server shut down so the government cannot access sensitive user data in case they seize the server.
More so, the provider has one of the best and most advanced kill switch implementations. Their integrated firewall enforces all traffic to be sent through secure tunnels thereby protecting their users from all known IP leaks not only when the app is running, but also after OS reboot. Essentially, it prevents unsecured online access after you restart your device unless you connect to a VPN server.
Perfect Privacy allows up to five specific ports to forward to your computer, and three random ports available for forwarding. You can also choose a specific server at which the port forwarding should be applied.
Perfect Privacy also can bypass strict firewalls by obfuscating OpenVPN to look like normal HTTPS traffic with Stealth VPN or OpenVPN over SSH feature, while also rerouting VPN through an open port: 22, 53, 443 or a random high port. Basically, if your WiFi network completely blocks VPN, Perfect Privacy can bypass firewall and unblock VPN on virtually any network.
In addition, Perfect Privacy offers a unique Multi-Hop VPN feature that allows cascading over up to 4 OpenVPN servers (multi-layer end-to-end encryption) at the same time along with SOCKS5 and Squid proxies. So you can create a chain of 6 VPN locations at the same time which basically eliminates any possibility of tracking you down. While this setup surely provides more anonymity, it will dramatically slow you down, which may be an issue for some VPN users.
NeuroRouting is an AI based dynamic routing that determines the most secure and fastest route through the Internet. The algorithm dynamically changes VPN servers when taking a secure route to different destinations. Since NeuroRouting automatically assigns you a new IP address for different exit points, government tracking becomes very challenging, if impossible.
Additionally, Perfect Privacy regularly updates a Warrant Canary page as an insurance that the provider has not received any subpoenas.
Another interesting feature is the provider’s ability to resolve .onion (TOR) addresses without the need for the Tor Browser. Perfect Privacy SOCKS5 and HTTP proxies are setup to resolve Tor addresses by default.
Overall, Perfect Privacy VPN is the most secure VPN service to avoid mass surveillance, bypass internet restrictions, access blocked websites, and securely stream multimedia content.
To read a full Perfect Privacy review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 4.50 EUR/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 7 EUR
AirVPN is an Italian VPN provider created by privacy activists whose main goal is data protection. AirVPN has over 200 servers in 23 countries that have Perfect Forward Secrecy through Diffie-Hellman key exchange DHE. Essentially key negotiation is performed every 60 minutes to avoid data breach if the key is compromised. AirVPN offers OpenVPN dynamic port forwarding on 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP and 53 TCP/UDP. Additionally, AirVPN offers OpenVPN over SSH and OpenVPN over SSL that mask OpenVPN and make the use of encryption tools invisible to some of the most advanced firewalls. To read a full AirVPN review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 1.66 USD/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 12.95 USD
Switzerland based VyprVPN is a leading no logs VPN provider with over 700 ultra fast servers worldwide that support gigabit VPN speed (1,000Mbps). VyprVPN was independently audited by Leviathan Security that confirmed VyprVPN to be a no logging VPN service.
Unlike most VPN providers, VyprVPN doesn’t rely on 3rd party hosting – they own and manage their own VPN servers. Essentially, no 3rd parties involved means that no one else handles your data, which increases overall security and privacy.
All VyprVPN servers run on the highest encryption using the most modern encryption methods. NAT firewall is an additional layer of security since it blocks unrequested inbound traffic. While VyprVPN doesn’t support port forwarding, it gives the option to manually assign the port opened by the OpenVPN protocol. Under the port settings, you can chose 443, and a range between 15001-20000 that should be more than enough for seeding or to boost your VPN speed on the throttled ports, like 1194.
In addition, VyprVPN is an excellent provider to bypass even the strictest firewalls that block VPN connection. For this purpose VyprVPN designed a proprietary VPN protocol called Chameleon. The protocol scrambles OpenVPN to hide VPN use and make it undetectable via deep packet inspection (DPI). Chameleon allows you to use VPN on very restrictive networks that completely block VPN.
VyrpVPN apps have a DNS and IP leaks protection and a kill switch to protect your device from accidentally accessing the Internet using your real IP address. VyprVPN kill switch works deeper than a typical kill switch. It remains active even after you quit the app, so when enabled, it works as a firewall and completely blocks Internet access until you connect to VyprVPN.
VyprVPN infrastructure is amazingly fast offering ultra fast gigabit speeds and low ping times for high speed HD streaming. Being one of the fastest VPN services, VyprVPN boasts some of the best VPN speeds. VyprVPN has dedicated streaming servers that can bypass Netflix proxy error and also work with BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify.
With over 200,000 IP addresses in 64 countries, VyprVPN offers a fantastic choice of VPN locations. To read a full VyprVPN review click HERE.
ANNUAL PRICE: 6.67 USD/mo
MONTHLY PRICE: 12.95 USD
Based in the British Virgin Islands, ExpressVPN is an excellent no logs VPN service for privacy oriented VPN users who want to protect their data from government surveillance, improve online security and bypass censorship.
ExpressVPN has been independently audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a top team of security audit experts with access to ExpressVPN servers’ codebase to verify their no logging claims. The audit also checked that TrustedServer technology operates as described, one of the extremely important features to guarantee user anonymity.
TrustedServer is a name ExpressVPN uses to describe their security tech that has VPN servers running on RAM only, instead of a hard drive that typically contains data until it is erased and written over. TrustedServers are automatically wiped every time they are rebooted or the electricity is cut off, which eliminates any possibility that the government could seize VPN servers and access sensitive user data.
If you run ExpressVPN app on your home router, you can setup port forwarding to remotely access devices connected to your ExpressVPN router. The app allows to manually configure internal and external port numbers between 1 and 65,535 TCP/UDP. Additionally, you can use a DDNS hostname to access devices remotely.
ExpressVPN default configuration wraps OpenVPN into SSL and reroutes VPN connection through HTTPS port 443. This setup completely hides VPN use from network admins and makes your VPN traffic appear as regular encrypted Internet browsing, thereby, making ExpressVPN a perfect choice for VPN users who need increased anonymity. Assuming your restrictive network blocks VPN protocols and VPN ports, ExpressVPN can unblock VPN on virtually any network.
ExpressVPN custom apps have a built-in DNS leak protection to ensure that no data is leaked while the app is running. Even though ExpressVPN is extremely reliable, kill switch is another useful feature that guards your real IP address from leaking.
Additionally, the provider has one of the fastest infrastructures with over 3,000 servers in 94 countries. Ultra fast ExpressVPN is one of the few services with VPN network that supports gigabit Internet connection, making it a perfect choice for ultra high speed streaming, torrenting and gaming.
ExpressVPN is also an excellent choice for high speed Netflix streaming. The provider can unblock Netflix USA and UK, Hulu, BBC iPlayer and a number of other streaming services.
Overall, this ultra fast infrastructure, dedication to security, and a number of additional privacy features definitely makes ExpressVPN one of the most secure VPN services.
To read a full ExpressVPN review click HERE.
When ISPs, governments and other entities want to block specific activities, they generally block ports that are used by those activities. For instance, by blocking port 1194, they essentially prevent OpenVPN protocol from connecting to the VPN server. As a result, VPN is unable to establish connection which forces a user to switch back to a regular unencrypted browsing.
Port blocking is common on school, corporate, and public networks like hotels & restaurants (not to be confused with DNS filtering that only blocks access to specific websites). Generally, these networks only block ports associated with torrenting and similar “illegal” activities, but they may go as far as blocking the ports that are used by VPN encryption protocols.
When torrenting doesn’t work, it’s because the admins either blocked default BitTorrent ports or blocked all ports, but the ones that are most necessary.
Being able to setup custom VPN port is an amazing feature that solves the issue. Port 443 and 80, for instance, is used by web browsers (Chrome, Safari, Edge) to send requests. If 443 and 80 ports were blocked, you would not be able to access the Internet through your web browser at all. Customizing OpenVPN to use an open port (like 443), instead of blocked a port 1194, allows you to reroute all VPN traffic and bypass the restrictions.
When it comes to torrenting or gaming, some ports may be slower than others, even switching between TCP and UDP or to the designated BitTorrent port could increase the speed of torrent traffic. For this reason, port forwarding is an invaluable feature for torrenting and gaming.
All VPN providers listed below support custom TCP and UDP ports. ExpressVPN is the only one that does not allow for custom configurations, however. ExpressVPN app sends OpenVPN through port 443 by default.
China, Iran, Syria and similar repressive governments have a state-wide blocking on VPN services and VPN protocols. Simply forwarding your traffic through other ports won’t work. If you are looking for a VPN provider that works in those countries, please read our Best VPN for China guide.
This definition of “port forwarding” is WRONG. It has nothing to do with the port you use to make an OUTBOUND connection to an OpenVPN server (or the flexibility and variety of choices in ports available to connect to the VPN server).
Port Forwarding refers to INBOUND connections getting through the VPN and being allowed to connect to servers you are hosting.
There is a big difference in connecting out versus receiving connections. That’s like mistaking the ringer on a phone for a dial tone on a phone. Dial tones are use to make calls OUT. A ringer makes a ringing sound when a call comes IN.
Without “port forwarding”, you still have a “dial tone” to “call out”, but there is no ringer to “receive calls”.
Indeed. I came here looking for VPNs which allow port forwarding, and not only they don’t know what it is, it’s clearly marketing and not a impartial analysis.
I guess we will change our guide in the coming weeks to make matters more clear for our readers. There are 2 types of typical use cases. You may need a classical port forwarding to access remote devices, increase gaming or torrent seeding speeds by opening additional ports. But some users only want to re-route VPN traffic through a specific port to also increase torrenting and gaming speed (because, for instance, some ports may be throttled) or because they are on a restrictive WiFi network that blocks VPN. The providers that we list provide either or both.
trustzone doesn’t allow port forwarding
neither does express vpn smh
ExpressVPN router app allows port forwarding to remotely access devices, which we mentioned in our ExpressVPN description. They also reroute all VPN traffic through port 443. Every VPN service has their own implementation and limitations when it comes to VPN ports and port forwarding. For this reason please take the time to read the summaries in full where we tried to give a more detailed info on what you can get.