Does a VPN Drain Your Battery? We Tested It (2026)
Research shows that 62% to 64% of global web traffic now comes from smartphones, and increasingly more people use them as their primary internet device. That makes battery life far more important than it was in the Nokia 3310 days.
We also checked how many people use VPNs, which comes to 23% globally. So it’s worth knowing whether a VPN drains your battery, how much, and how you can reduce it.
I gathered the results of three VPN battery-drain tests (NordVPN, Surfshark, and Astrill VPN). A crucial piece of data came from West Coast Labs, which carried out an in-depth NordVPN battery drain test. We also ran a small test of our own, so you’ll find a data-rich analysis below.
Does a VPN Drain Your Battery? The Short Answer
Yes, a VPN does drain your battery faster.
That said, modern VPNs running the WireGuard protocol add only a small overhead that’s barely meaningful in daily use. The older OpenVPN protocol, which is useful for bypassing tough restrictions, demands more resources and drains more battery.
VPN Battery Drain Test Results (iPhone, Android, and Laptop)
Let’s start with the West Coast Labs test, which you can find in full here.
They tested four things: the actual battery drain, drain when switching networks, drain across different protocols, and 24-hour drain for low-activity smartphone use. Here are the results.
During 60 minutes of streaming on the NordLynx protocol, NordVPN added a 1.6% overhead on Android and 2.1% on iOS. (NordLynx is built on WireGuard’s modern architecture.)
During network switches from Wi-Fi to mobile data, it added 5.1% on Android and 7.2% on iOS. OpenVPN added 8.7% and 9.4% respectively. The iOS overhead is higher not because of the VPN itself, but because iOS uses an additional network-extension feature to route VPN traffic.
NordLynx used 31% less battery than OpenVPN on Android and 24% less on iOS. Lastly, during the 24-hour test, NordVPN added only 1.4% on Android and 1.8% on iOS.
NordVPN’s own tests showed a 3% overhead on a Google Pixel 6 during 5 hours on mobile data, and 0.25% on Wi-Fi. Surfshark showed a 7% overhead on iOS during 73 minutes of use. Astrill VPN showed a 24% difference on a Lenovo IdeaPad Creator 5, the only result well outside the norm (its protocol was unspecified).
We then tested Surfshark’s battery drain ourselves, during 2 hours of YouTube streaming on a Samsung Galaxy A56 5G. First we ran a no-VPN baseline, then repeated the test on the WireGuard and OpenVPN TCP protocols.
Without a VPN, it used exactly 10% of battery life. Streaming for 2 hours on WireGuard, the overall drain was 12%, so the VPN itself accounted for just 2%.
On the OpenVPN TCP protocol, the overall drain was 17%, so the VPN used 7%. That puts the difference between WireGuard and OpenVPN at about 5 percentage points in our test.
Why a VPN Drains Your Battery Faster
Like all apps, a VPN draws on your smartphone or laptop battery. Here’s why.
- Packet management. Running a VPN uses your device’s processor to pack, unpack, and reroute data packets, which keeps the processor more active.
- Reconnection. A VPN continuously maintains a secure tunnel to its server. Whenever your device switches from Wi-Fi to mobile data, it has to reestablish that connection, which uses power.
- Older protocols. OpenVPN, released in 2001, is less optimized for modern devices. It requires more processing per data packet and increases battery drain more.
- Background processes. Even when idle, a VPN uses some power to keep the connection alive. This is significantly reduced on the WireGuard protocol.
- Cryptography on older devices. Devices without dedicated cryptographic hardware (circuits built for encryption tasks) use substantially more power to perform them.
How to Reduce VPN Battery Drain on Your Device
As minimal as modern VPN battery drain is, here’s what you can do to reduce it even further.
- Switch to WireGuard. Testing consistently shows it drains less battery than the older OpenVPN protocol.
- Use Wi-Fi where you can. A Wi-Fi connection uses fewer device resources than cellular data.
- Use a router VPN. At home, you can set up a VPN on your router, which offloads all the VPN processing to the router and reduces your device’s own VPN battery drain to zero.
- Choose the nearest server. A nearby VPN server reduces routing distance, which minimizes latency and reconnection overhead.
- Separate your VPN traffic. Use the split-tunneling feature to choose which apps use the VPN tunnel and which use the regular ISP connection.
Is the Battery Trade-off Worth It for Privacy and Security?
Yes, the cybersecurity and privacy benefits of a VPN outweigh the minimal battery drain by a long way.
Nearly all laptops and smartphones made in the last decade have cryptographic hardware acceleration, and the WireGuard protocol minimizes battery drain thanks to its optimized design.
For casual use, a VPN uses only a few percent of your battery per day. That’s a fair trade for Wi-Fi security, full encryption, and extra protections like NordVPN’s Threat Protection.
The drain can rise slightly if you stream continuously, but you can offset that by using Wi-Fi instead of cellular data, and you gain the ability to bypass geographical restrictions for more content.
Many VPNs also include an ad blocker, which reduces your mobile data usage and saves a little battery too, since ads use device resources to load.
To summarize: VPN battery drain isn’t something you need to worry about. As long as you use the WireGuard protocol on a modern device, it won’t be an issue.