Best VPN for Firestick in 2026: Top Picks Tested

Adding an Amazon Fire Stick to your TV enables you to watch streaming content from all over the world, even on older TVs that otherwise don’t support smart functionality. Using a VPN on one might not be the most obvious addition, but they can unlock tons of content from other regions that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise. Many regional titles are locked behind restrictive licensing agreements which means you might have to pay out for an additional streaming service just to watch the film you want. In the worst cases, you could be completely blocked from watching some titles.

That’s where a VPN comes into play. Connecting to a VPN server from your Amazon Fire Stick means that you look like you’re in another country, so the IP your streaming service uses to serve you content could be in the US while you’re on holiday in the UK. Packing a Fire Stick with a VPN loaded while you’re on holiday is your passport to streaming services worldwide, but not every VPN offers a Fire TV Stick app. That’s why we’ve put together a quick list of the best VPNs for Firestick so you know which ones will play best with the Amazon Appstore.

Best VPNs for Firestick: Our Top Picks Compared

1. NordVPN

NordVPN tops our list because it’s easy to use on Firestick, it’s a great all-around VPN, and it includes quite a few extra features for a Smart TV app. The native Fire TV app installs straight from Amazon’s Appstore. Download it, log in by scanning a QR code and entering your details on a separate device, and you’re streaming within a few minutes.

In addition to normal servers, NordVPN offers P2P, Onion over VPN, and Obfuscated servers even on the Fire TV app, as well as Split Tunneling, post-quantum encryption for future-proofing your VPN, and threat protection for scanning against malware. It’s quite an impressive app, all in all.

The app itself works perfectly with your Firestick remote. It’s clear NordVPN have put some thought into designing clean interface specifically for Smart TVs. The actual network is lightning fast, with 9,000 servers across 181 locations. That’s plenty of options to bounce between if you’re looking for different Netflix regions. We’ve tested NordVPN’s streaming capabilities for ourselves and found that it unblocked every streaming service we threw at it. Whether you’re looking for Netflix, Disney+, BBC iPlayer or Prime Video, NordVPN works.

At $3.49/month for long-term plans, NordVPN certainly isn’t the cheapest VPN, but at the moment it’s the best value VPN for running on your Firestick.

Visit NordVPN.com

For more information, refer to our full NordVPN review.

2. Surfshark

Surfshark offers something few providers can genuinely claim: An unlimited simultaneous connection policy. One Surfshark subscription at $2.49/month is enough to cover every Fire TV device, phone, laptop, and tablet in your house at once. Considering most providers only offer around 10 devices at once, Surfshark is our go-to recommendation for covering multiple streaming setups.

The Fire TV app is well designed, mimicking the standard Surfshark app interface you’d see elsewhere with some rearranging just for Smart TVs. This mostly consists of bigger buttons and a simplified interface, but it’s still easy to get to Surfshark’s more interesting features. That said, Surfshark is limited to only offering you capabilities strictly to do with the VPN. Don’t expect to find any trace of Alternate ID or Search here. What you will find is Clean Web (their filtering solution), as well as access to Static IP and MultiHop servers. Plus, there’s a handy kill switch built in. All in all, it’s a great VPN for Android devices as well as Smart TVs.

We’ve found that Surfshark’s 4,500 server network can reliably unblocks major streaming platforms, too. We hit 100% success accessing Netflix regions as well as other major streaming services. That’s an absolute must-have for any streaming VPN, and Surfshark’s hit the mark.

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For more information, refer to our full Surfshark review.

3. IPVanish

If you’re mainly streaming US content, IPVanish is a no-frills option that does the job. It does have particularly excellent US server coverage and we’ve found that the connection speed IPVanish offers is roughly on par with the top end of VPN providers. Plus, they have one of the better Fire TV apps out there, at least in terms of aesthetics. The app itself feels responsive responsive and it just takes one press of a button to get an automatic server selection based on your nearest location.

IPVanish consistently works with Disney+, Paramount+, and most other US regional services. While it handles American streaming platforms pretty well, that’s IPVanish’s only unique contribution to this list. The selection of app features available pales in comparison to NordVPN or Surfshark. It does have an unlimited device policy, but so does Surfshark. However, you do have access to a kill switch and split tunneling, so at least the basics are in place. IPVanish supports WireGuard too for faster connections that won’t lag your Fire Stick.

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For more information, refer to our full IPVanish review.

4. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN has a pretty straightforward app, but standout feature is MediaStreamer. It’s a Smart DNS service that works even on networks where VPN apps aren’t allowed Even if you can’t run a full VPN on older Fire TV Stick models, MediaStreamer will still allow you to access regionally restricted streaming services by intelligently routing your DNS requests in real time. It’s also great when all you’re concerned about is maximum speed without the VPN overhead.

Otherwise, the Fire TV app is as well designed as the rest of ExpressVPN’s product line. It’s easy to use and we’ve found it delivers solid performance. That’s not a surprise, given ExpressVPN’s 1000s server network across 105 locations. It’s one of the best VPNs out there for geographic coverage, although ExpressVPN didn’t hit a perfect score in our unblocking tests.

After ExpressVPN’s recent price overhaul, you’ll be paying $2.49/month if you pick a long term plan. That’s pretty reasonable, especially if you’re regularly taking advantage of their 24/7 support service, but otherwise you’re better off picking one of the above services instead, especially if you’re concerned about unblocking capabilities.

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For more information, refer to our full ExpressVPN review.

5. Proton VPN

Proton VPN has only recently brought out a new Fire TV app but it’s as good as the rest of the competition. Proton VPN has excellent privacy credentials but has lagged behind a little bit in the past in terms of user-friendliness and convenience, but the Fire TV app is about as simple as can be. All you have to do is go to ProtonVPN’s site from an already logged-in device and type in the code you see when you start up the VPN app, which makes it way easier to log in than typing a username and password.

That’s all well and good, but how does it perform at streaming? Well, we recorded 100% success rates in our most recent round of streaming tests unblocking Netflix, Disney+, and other US providers. Proton offers 20,000 servers across 127 locations, making it one of the most extensive VPNs on the market. Suffering from censorship or network blocks? No problem, even on the Firestick App Proton VPN provides an obfuscated Stealth protocol which beats VPN monitoring.

At $2.99/month with 70% off long-term plans, the pricing is competitive, but NordVPN and Surfshark offer a little bit more for the price.

Visit ProtonVPN.com

For more information, refer to our full Proton VPN review.

How We Tested and Chose the Best Firestick VPNs

We tested our top VPN providers specifically for Fire TV Stick compatibility. Where possible, we’ve used the Amazon Appstore specific version of the Android app on a smart TV to see how the client works, both in terms of usability and feature set. For each one, we’ve taken the client for a spin using both a bluetooth keyboard and a TV remote. We expect to see that each client is built for easy operation even if you’ve just got a remote and a smart phone, so in addition to testing the menus out by remote we’ve also tried out each provider’s login process too.

How to Install a VPN on Your Fire TV Stick

Getting a VPN running on your Fire TV Stick just requires heading over to Amazon Store. All of our top picks have native apps there that you can download in a flash:

1. Hit the Amazon Appstore: Go to “Apps” from your Fire TV home screen, then open the Amazon Appstore.
2. Find your VPN: Open up the search bar and type in the VPN you’ve settled on: NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, whichever one you like best.
3. Download it: Click “Get” to open up the app page, then “Download” once you’ve picked the VPN you want to get the download started.
4. Log in: Fire up the app and punch in your account details. Most VPNs we’ve tested allow you to log in using a QR code on another device where you’re already logged in to the VPN service.
5. Connect: All that’s left to do is navigate to the “Connect” button and select it with your remote.
6. Watch something: Now you’re protected with a VPN, so you can open your streaming app up and start watching content from foreign regions.

Even if the VPN you’ve picked doesn’t have a dedicated Amazon TV app, you can usually sideload the Android version using the Downloader app. Just make sure you’ve enabled “Apps from Unknown Sources” in your Fire TV settings first.

Why You Need a VPN on Your Firestick

When your Fire TV Stick connects to the internet, all of your traffic is sent through your ISP before being routed through to the service you’re using. That means if your traffic is unencrypted, your ISP can see everything you’re streaming. A VPN uses the same military-grade encryption trusted by banks and governments to encrypt your traffic between your device and a VPN server, which then routes it to the rest of the internet. Once you’re connected to a VPN, your viewing habits are invisible to your internet provider.

Of course, VPNs aren’t just good for privacy. There’s plenty of real-world uses for a VPN on your Fire TV. When you route your traffic through a VPN tunnel, it appears to the rest of the internet as though you’re connecting from that location. In turn, you can access content libraries that would only be available if you’re connecting from a specific region. For example, Netflix JP typically has different shows than Netflix US, and BBC iPlayer is generally only available in the UK.

That’s not the only benefit of encrypting your traffic, either. Some internet providers single out streaming traffic and slow it down to reduce congestion on their networks, especially during peak hours. This isn’t particularly fair, but by masking your network traffic using a VPN makes it way harder for ISPs to selectively throttle your connection

While VPNs are great for increasing your privacy and security, if you’re using one on your Fire TV stick you’re probably most concerned about the streaming benefits. Well, NordVPN unblocked every streaming service we tested. However, we’d also recommend Surfshark for anyone who has multiple streaming devices because their unlimited simultaneous connections policy makes it great value for money.

VPN Protocols Explained: Which Is Best for Streaming on Firestick

Your Fire TV Stick isn’t a full-fledged computer, but the top-tier VPNs we’ve reviewed all pack powerful VPN protocols that get the most out of the limited processing power you get from a Fire Stick. Each protocol dictates exactly how your data is encrypted between your stick and the VPN server, so it’s pretty important to pick the right one for your device. Otherwise, you could find that you’re losing out on network speed because your stick can’t keep up.

If you’re using a Fire TV VPN client with WireGuard, that’s the best choice. WireGuard has been built to be leaner and more efficient than OpenVPN with only around 4K lines of code resulting in drastically lower CPU usage.

NordVPN uses NordLynx by default which is a proprietary protocol, but it’s roughly equivalent to WireGuard. ExpressVPN also has their own proprietary protocol called Lightway, which (like WireGuard) has been built to be lightweight and provide better connection speeds than OpenVPN. We had no buffering issues when connecting to servers through NordLynx and Lightway, but we can say that Surfshark’s WireGuard implementation also performed roughly as well too.

OpenVPN is an older protocol which is highly compatible across most platforms but has a pretty bloated and power-hungry implementation. Frankly, it’s showing its age on Fire TV’s ARM processor. If you’re using an older Fire Stick you may find that OpenVPN causes avoidable lag, so it’s only worth using if your WireGuard connection is being blocked.

Frequently Asked Questions