Best VPN for PS5 in 2026

Does the PS5 Support VPN Apps Natively?

No — and this is the single most important thing to understand before searching for "the best VPN for PS5," because it changes what you're actually looking for. The PlayStation 5's system software has no general-purpose app store the way a phone, smart TV, or Fire TV Stick does. Sony's console is built around a closed, curated set of apps — mostly streaming services and PlayStation's own store — and there is no slot in that lineup for a third-party VPN client, on the PS5 or on any previous PlayStation console.

That means every method for using a VPN with a PS5 is, at its core, a way of routing the console's internet connection through a VPN that's running somewhere else first. There are three realistic ways to do that, each with real tradeoffs:

Router-level VPN

You configure a VPN connection directly on your home router (either because the router natively supports VPN client configuration, or because it's running custom firmware that adds that capability, or because you buy a router already set up this way). Every device on that network — PS5 included — is automatically routed through the VPN with zero setup on the console itself. This is the cleanest long-term solution but depends entirely on your specific router model supporting it.

Connection sharing from a Windows PC or Mac

You run a VPN app on a Windows or Mac computer, connect the PS5 to that computer with an Ethernet cable, and use the operating system's built-in connection-sharing feature (Internet Connection Sharing on Windows, or the equivalent network-sharing setting on macOS) to pass the VPN'd connection through to the console. This works with any provider that has a desktop app and doesn't require touching your router's settings at all.

Mobile hotspot

You run a VPN app on a phone, turn on its VPN connection, then turn on the phone's mobile hotspot and connect the PS5 to that hotspot's Wi-Fi network. This is the least practical option for regular use — mobile data speeds and data caps make it a poor fit for game downloads and sustained online play — but it's a legitimate quick test if you want to see how a specific VPN behaves with your PS5 before committing to a router or PC-sharing setup.

None of these three methods is inherently "the" answer; which one makes sense depends on what router you own, whether you have a spare computer you can leave running near your PS5, and how permanent a setup you want. The rest of this article walks through all three in detail.

How Do You Actually Set Up a VPN on a PS5?

Here's what each of the three methods from the previous section actually involves, step by step.

Method 1: Router-level VPN (the most permanent solution)

This is the best long-term option if your router supports it, because once it's configured, your PS5 and every other device on your home network are covered automatically — no per-device setup, no computer that has to stay on, and no reconnecting anything after a power cut.

1. Check whether your current router supports VPN client configuration. Some consumer routers support this natively in their admin settings; many don't. Custom firmware such as DD-WRT or OpenWrt adds this capability to many router models that don't support it out of the box, though flashing custom firmware is a more advanced, model-specific process with its own risks and isn't something to attempt without researching your exact router model first.
2. Alternatively, consider a router that supports VPN configuration out of the box, or a small travel router/VPN-capable router placed between your existing router and your PS5 specifically, if you don't want to touch your main home network's router configuration at all.
3. Follow your VPN provider's own router setup instructions for your specific router model or firmware. Setup details (protocol, server address format, credentials) vary by provider and by router, so check the provider's own support site directly rather than assuming a generic guide applies exactly to your hardware.
4. Once configured, connect your PS5 to that router as normal — wired or wireless — with no changes needed on the console itself. The PS5 has no idea a VPN is involved; it just sees a normal internet connection.
5. Test your connection on PS5 under Settings → Network → Connection Status to confirm internet connectivity and check your NAT type (more on why NAT type matters below).

Method 2: Connection sharing from a Windows PC

This is the most common approach for PS5 owners who don't want to touch router settings, and it only requires a VPN provider's regular Windows app plus an Ethernet cable.

1. Install your VPN provider's Windows app on a PC and connect to a server as normal.
2. Connect the PS5 to that Windows PC directly with an Ethernet cable (most modern laptops need a USB-to-Ethernet adapter if they lack a built-in Ethernet port).
3. On the Windows PC, open Network Connections, right-click the network adapter that has your normal internet connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet to your router), and open its Properties.
4. Under the Sharing tab, enable Internet Connection Sharing and select the Ethernet adapter connected to the PS5 as the home networking connection. Windows will now share the PC's internet connection — including whatever's running through the VPN app — with the PS5 over that Ethernet cable.
5. On the PS5, go to Settings → Network → Set Up Internet Connection, choose the wired connection, and confirm it picks up an IP address automatically. If it connects successfully, your PS5 is now routed through the PC's VPN connection.
6. Keep the PC powered on and the VPN connected for as long as you want the PS5's connection covered — this method only works while the sharing PC stays on and connected.

Method 3: Connection sharing from a Mac

The same basic idea works on macOS, using a slightly different menu.

1. Install your VPN provider's Mac app and connect to a server.
2. Connect the PS5 to the Mac with an Ethernet cable (again, likely via a USB-to-Ethernet adapter on newer Mac models).
3. Open System Settings → General → Sharing, and turn on Internet Sharing. Set "Share your connection from" to your normal internet connection (Wi-Fi), and check the box for the Ethernet port connected to the PS5 under "To computers using."
4. On the PS5, set up a wired internet connection the same way as above and confirm it connects.

Method 4: Mobile hotspot (quick test only)

1. Install your VPN provider's app on a phone and connect to a server.
2. Turn on the phone's mobile hotspot / personal hotspot feature.
3. On the PS5, connect to that hotspot's Wi-Fi network the same way you'd connect to any Wi-Fi network, under Settings → Network → Set Up Internet Connection.

Whichever method you use, it's worth testing your PS5's connection speed (Settings → Network → Connection Status → Test Internet Connection) both with and without the VPN active, so you know exactly what tradeoff you're accepting before relying on it for a long download or an online session.

Will a VPN Hurt My PS5 Gaming Latency?

Usually a little, sometimes more — and this is the single most important honest tradeoff to understand before adding a VPN to a PS5 you use for online multiplayer. A VPN routes your traffic through an additional server before it reaches its final destination, and that extra hop adds some amount of delay compared to your normal, direct connection. How much depends heavily on the specific VPN server you connect to and how far it is from both you and the game server you're actually playing on.

The practical rule that matters most: connect to a VPN server that's geographically close to you and, ideally, in roughly the same direction as the actual game servers you're playing on. A VPN server on the other side of the world will add a very noticeable delay; a well-placed, nearby VPN server often adds a delay that's small enough not to matter for most game types, though it's rarely literally zero. For fast-paced, latency-sensitive competitive games, even a small added delay can be noticeable to an experienced player, so it's worth testing your specific setup in a low-stakes match before relying on it for something that matters to you.

There's one specific, narrower scenario where a VPN can genuinely help latency rather than hurt it: if your ISP is throttling or deprioritizing gaming traffic specifically (some ISPs do this during peak hours, similar to how they sometimes throttle streaming traffic), a VPN's encryption can hide that your traffic is gaming-related, which in that specific case can sometimes result in a more consistent connection than going direct. This isn't universal and isn't guaranteed to be happening on your connection — it's the honest explanation behind occasional reports of a VPN "helping" ping, rather than a VPN making your base internet connection faster in general.

Does a VPN Help With NAT Type and Party Chat on PS5?

This is one of the more common reasons PS5 owners specifically look into a VPN, so it's worth a clear, honest explanation of what's actually going on.

What NAT type actually is

PS5's Settings → Network → Connection Status shows a NAT Type — Open, Moderate, or Strict — that describes how easily your console can establish direct peer-to-peer connections with other players for online play and party chat. Open generally means the smoothest matchmaking and voice chat experience; Strict can mean trouble joining certain sessions, being unable to hear or be heard by some players in a party, or being placed in different matches than friends with a better NAT type. NAT type is primarily determined by your router's configuration — specifically how it handles port forwarding and UPnP — not by your ISP or your console itself.

Why a VPN can make NAT type worse, not better

Because a VPN adds another layer of network address translation on top of your router's own NAT, routing a PS5 through a VPN — especially via the PC or Mac connection-sharing methods — quite often results in a Strict NAT type rather than an improved one, unless the specific VPN provider offers port forwarding and you configure it correctly. If your primary goal is improving NAT type for smoother party chat and matchmaking, a VPN is generally not the right tool; properly configuring UPnP or manual port forwarding directly on your router is the more reliable fix, and is worth trying first regardless of whether you also want a VPN for other reasons.

Where a VPN genuinely does help: protecting your IP address

Separate from NAT type, there's a real and well-documented reason competitive and party-chat-heavy gamers look at VPNs: IP address exposure. On some older peer-to-peer-heavy game networking models, your real IP address can be visible to other players you're matched against or in a party with, and a small subset of players use tools to look up and target that IP address for denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks meant to knock a specific player offline — a real, if not universal, problem in certain competitive gaming communities. Because a VPN replaces your real IP address with the VPN server's IP address for all your traffic, it removes this specific attack surface: even if someone tries to target the IP address they see, they're targeting the VPN server's infrastructure, not your home network. This protective benefit is genuine and is one of the most defensible, practical reasons to run a PS5 through a VPN, separate from and sometimes in tension with the NAT type tradeoff described above.

The practical takeaway

If DDoS protection and IP privacy in party chat matter more to you than achieving an Open NAT type, a VPN is a reasonable tool, and it's worth checking whether your chosen provider supports port forwarding to reduce the NAT type impact. If matchmaking speed and voice chat reliability matter more, prioritize fixing NAT type at the router level first, and treat a VPN as optional or something to test carefully rather than assume will help.

Can a VPN Get Cheaper PS Store Prices or Unlock Games Early?

This is a common hope, and it's worth being direct about the honest, current reality rather than repeating a claim that circulates widely online without much nuance.

A PlayStation Network account's store region is tied to the account itself, not to your current IP address, and it's generally set when the account is first created based on your billing address and payment method. Changing which regional PS Store you shop from typically requires changing your account's actual registered region and payment method to match — a process Sony controls at the account level — rather than something a VPN can do on its own by changing what IP address your console appears to connect from. In practice, simply connecting a PS5 through a VPN server in another country does not, by itself, switch which regional store prices or catalog you see, because the store you're shown is generally driven by your account's region setting, not your live network location.

Regional pricing differences for the same game are real — publishers and Sony do price digital games differently by country, sometimes substantially — but capturing that difference generally means going through PlayStation's own official account region-change process (which has its own rules, waiting periods, and requirement to match a valid local payment method), not simply routing traffic through a VPN server. Early-access or early-unlock timing for game releases is also generally controlled server-side by publishers and Sony's own store backend based on account region and official release scheduling, not something a VPN reliably bypasses.

The honest summary: don't buy or set up a VPN specifically expecting it to unlock cheaper PS Store prices or early game access on a PS5. Where a VPN is genuinely useful is the privacy, throttling, and IP-protection angles covered elsewhere in this article — treat any "unlock cheaper prices" claim you see elsewhere with real skepticism.

Will a VPN Fix Slow Downloads or Game Update Speeds on PS5?

Sometimes, in one specific and fairly common scenario — but not as a general rule, and it's worth understanding the actual mechanism rather than treating a VPN as a blanket download-speed fix.

PS5 game files and updates are large, often tens of gigabytes for a single title, and downloading them puts sustained, heavy load on your internet connection for extended periods. Some ISPs apply traffic shaping or throttling to specific types of traffic during that kind of sustained heavy usage, sometimes concentrated during peak evening hours when overall network demand is highest. Because a VPN encrypts your traffic, your ISP generally can't identify what type of traffic it is — just that it's an encrypted connection to a VPN server — which can, in cases where throttling is specifically applied based on traffic type or destination, result in a more consistent download speed than going direct.

This isn't guaranteed to be happening on your specific connection, and a VPN cannot create bandwidth your internet plan doesn't already provide — it can only add its own modest overhead on top of whatever speed you have, or in the throttling scenario above, avoid a slowdown that would otherwise be applied. If your PS5 downloads are consistently slow with or without a VPN, the more common causes are worth ruling out first: your base internet plan's actual speed, Wi-Fi signal strength if the PS5 isn't wired directly to your router, other devices on the network competing for bandwidth during the download, or server-side congestion on Sony's or a publisher's content-delivery network during a major, high-demand game launch — none of which a VPN can fix.

Does a VPN Affect PS5 Remote Play or Cross-Play?

PS5's Remote Play feature — streaming your console's screen and input over the internet to a phone, PC, laptop, or another PlayStation — depends on a stable, reasonably low-latency connection between your PS5 and whatever device you're streaming to, wherever you are. Running your PS5 through a VPN via one of the methods above adds the same modest latency overhead to Remote Play that it would to any other online PS5 activity, and because Remote Play is itself sensitive to connection quality (it's essentially a live video stream plus real-time input), that overhead is often more noticeable here than in a typical online match. If you rely on Remote Play regularly, it's worth testing specifically with your VPN active, on the closest server you can reasonably use, before assuming it will work as smoothly as your normal connection.

There's a separate, genuinely useful Remote Play scenario worth knowing: if you're away from home — traveling, at a friend's place, on a hotel or public Wi-Fi network — and using Remote Play to reach your home PS5, running the streaming device (not the PS5 itself) through a VPN adds encryption to that connection while you're on an untrusted network, which is a reasonable, defensible use case distinct from routing the PS5's own connection through a VPN.

Cross-play — playing online with people on other platforms like Xbox or PC in games that support it — works at the game-server level and isn't meaningfully affected by a VPN one way or the other, beyond the same general latency and NAT type considerations that apply to any online PS5 session covered earlier in this article. A VPN doesn't enable or disable cross-play itself; that's entirely controlled by whether the specific game you're playing supports it.

Comparing the 4 Providers for PS5 Use

We cover four VPN providers on this site — NordVPN, Proton VPN, PureVPN, and FastestVPN. None of them offers a native PS5 app, because as covered above, that's simply not possible on this console — so what actually differentiates them for PS5 use is router-configuration support, the quality of their Windows/Mac apps for the connection-sharing method, and whether they support port forwarding (relevant to the NAT type discussion above). Here's how each generally positions itself, without stating any price, star rating, or review count as fact — check each provider's own site directly for current pricing, plan details, and the latest router or port-forwarding support, since these details do change over time.

NordVPN

NordVPN publishes router setup guides for a range of supported router models and firmware, and its Windows and Mac apps are a straightforward foundation for the connection-sharing method if router-level setup isn't an option for you. Combined with a large global server network, that makes it a reasonable choice if you want flexibility between router-level and PC-sharing approaches. Check current NordVPN plans.

Proton VPN

Proton VPN, from the team behind Proton Mail and based in Switzerland, is built around privacy engineering as its core identity and offers a genuinely usable free tier, useful if you want to test a PC-sharing or router setup with your PS5 before committing to a paid plan. Check its current router-configuration documentation directly for your specific router model. Check current Proton VPN plans.

PureVPN

PureVPN is generally positioned as a value-focused option with a large simultaneous-device allowance, which is worth factoring in if you're already using PureVPN across several other devices in your household and want to add a PS5 via the PC-sharing or router method on the same plan. Check its current router and port-forwarding support directly. Check current PureVPN plans.

FastestVPN

FastestVPN is generally positioned as a lower-cost, entry-level option. Check its current Windows/Mac app and router-setup documentation directly, since router-level VPN configuration support and port-forwarding availability vary by provider and are worth confirming before you commit a setup around them. Check current FastestVPN plans.

None of these four is ranked here by price or star rating, because that data isn't something we state as fact on this site — data/providers.php's pricing and rating fields are intentionally left unfilled until confirmed directly from each provider's own current pricing page. The genuinely useful comparison for a PS5 shopper is router-configuration support, a reliable desktop app for the connection-sharing method, and port-forwarding availability if NAT type matters to you — not a manufactured numeric score.

Common PS5 VPN Problems and How to Fix Them

PS5 shows "Unable to connect to the internet" after setting up connection sharing

Double-check the Ethernet cable connection on both ends, and confirm Internet Connection Sharing (Windows) or Internet Sharing (Mac) is actually toggled on for the correct adapter — it's easy to enable sharing on the wrong network adapter by mistake. Restarting both the sharing computer and the PS5 after changing these settings often resolves a stuck connection.

NAT type shows Strict after connecting through a VPN

This is expected behavior with most VPN + connection-sharing setups, as explained above, since the VPN adds an extra layer of network address translation. If your provider supports port forwarding, configuring it can improve this; otherwise, weigh whether NAT type or the VPN's other benefits (IP protection, encryption) matter more for your use case, since the two can be in tension.

Games or downloads are noticeably slower with the VPN active

Try a different, geographically closer VPN server first — server distance and load are the most common causes of added latency or reduced throughput. If every server feels slow, disconnect the VPN briefly to confirm your base internet connection is the bottleneck rather than the VPN itself before troubleshooting further.

Party chat drops or won't connect to certain players

Often related to NAT type rather than the VPN connection failing outright — see the NAT type section above. If this is a frequent, significant problem for you, it's worth testing without the VPN to isolate whether the VPN or your router's underlying NAT configuration is the actual cause.

The sharing computer going to sleep disconnects the PS5

Both Windows and macOS can put a computer to sleep after a period of inactivity by default, which will drop the shared connection to the PS5 along with it. Adjust your computer's power/sleep settings to prevent sleep while it's actively sharing a connection, especially during long gaming sessions or overnight downloads.

PS5 won't detect the wired connection at all

Confirm the sharing computer actually has a working Ethernet port or a functioning USB-to-Ethernet adapter — some cheaper or older adapters are unreliable. Also confirm the PS5's network settings are set to obtain an IP address automatically rather than a leftover manual/static configuration from a previous setup.

PS5 vs. PS5 Pro vs. PS4: Does VPN Setup Differ?

Not meaningfully. The standard PS5, the PS5 Digital Edition, the PS5 Pro, and the older PS4 family all lack a native VPN app for the same underlying reason — none of them expose a general-purpose app store slot for one — so the router-level, PC/Mac connection-sharing, and mobile-hotspot methods described in this article apply identically across the whole PlayStation lineup. NAT type, IP-address exposure in party chat, and the PS Store region mechanics work essentially the same way on PS4 as they do on PS5, so if you have both consoles in the same household, a single router-level VPN setup covers all of them at once without any extra per-console configuration.

The one difference worth knowing: PS5 (including the Pro) supports faster network hardware than PS4 in some configurations, and a more powerful sharing computer or router generally has more headroom to handle a VPN's processing overhead without it becoming a noticeable bottleneck — but for most home setups and most VPN providers' modern protocols, this difference is small rather than a practical dealbreaker on either console generation.

The Bottom Line on the Best VPN for PS5

There's no native VPN app for PS5, and there never has been on any PlayStation console — so the real decision isn't "which VPN app do I install on my PS5," it's "which setup method fits my situation": a router-level VPN if your router supports it (the most permanent, zero-touch option), connection sharing from a Windows or Mac computer over Ethernet (the most common approach for most households), or a mobile hotspot as a quick, temporary test.

Be realistic about what a VPN changes on a PS5. It's genuinely useful for protecting your real IP address from other players in party chat and reducing DDoS exposure, and it can sometimes help with download consistency if your ISP throttles heavy traffic during peak hours. It typically adds a small amount of latency that matters more the more competitive and fast-paced the game is, it often pushes your NAT type toward Strict rather than improving it unless your provider supports port forwarding, and it does not reliably unlock cheaper PS Store prices or early game access — those are controlled by your PlayStation Network account's region settings, not by your live network location.

Among the four providers covered on this site, the practical differentiators for PS5 use are router-configuration documentation, a reliable Windows or Mac app for the connection-sharing method, and port-forwarding support if NAT type matters to you — check each provider's current setup guides and plans directly, since specifics change over time and none of it is something this article states as a fixed number.