The five best VPNs for New Zealand in 2023

Ruheni Mathenge Last updated: March 16, 2023 Read time: 18 minutes Disclosure

New Zealand is one of the world’s most friendly countries towards internet freedom. But using a VPN is still a must-do thing for multiple reasons today. This article lists the best options you can use in the country.

Sneak peek at New Zealand VPNs

New Zealand is among those countries that stand with people’s privacy and internet freedom. However, risks of identity theft, data breaches, surveillance, censorships, and geo-restrictions remain the biggest challenge for internet users. Similarly, accessing local sites and other content is another issue for New Zealanders living abroad. Nonetheless, the best VPNs can help you escape these barriers and ensure worry-free internet surfing within or outside New Zealand.

The wise and respected Confucious was the first philosopher to say, “no matter where you go, there you are.” And Internet censorship is also right there to accompany you, he could add in these current times.

Internet censorship has become a notorious feature in countries like China, Cuba, and other totalitarian states. That’s not false, but it’s a half-truth. Internet censorship is everywhere. Every country in the world suffers from it to some degree.

Even New Zealand Internet users have to deal with censorship every day. It shows how you could find that you can’t load some of your favorite websites when you use an ISP in the country. And that is why, if you’re going to visit New Zealand for business or pleasure in the future, you should know what the best New Zealand VPNs you can use in the country so that you can get around censorship are.

A VPN will help you circumvent a country’s or an ISP’s censorship, the geolocation-based blocks in many online services. And it will also protect your privacy and anonymity as you surf the web or perform any other online activity. Choosing the best New Zealand VPN will grant you access to any content you want in the world, bypass any censorship, and remain anonymous and safe.

And how do you know which VPN service will do the trick for you from New Zealand? It’s a good question. The VPN industry has changed significantly over the last few years. It used to be a small bunch of providers offering service only for the most recalcitrant nerds and paranoids on the planet.

Not anymore. Privacy awareness has exploded since Julian Assange and Edward Snowden caught the media attention. Also, the video streaming industry has grown exponentially in a “natural” way recently. Still, the pandemic put it on steroids, just as it did for e-commerce — and VPNs are relevant when it comes to streaming; more on that later.

As you read this, the VPN market is overcrowded with all kinds of options that go from free to expensive. So how to choose the best VPN for New Zealand? You don’t have to. That’s our job. This article will provide you with all the information you need to know about the top VPNs you can use in New Zealand.

Top New Zealand VPNs – The quick list

Now that you already know the essentials, these are the five best VPNs for New Zealand:

  1. NordVPN – A quality premium service favored by lots of experts.
  2. Private Internet Access – An excellent service that’s been around for over a decade.
  3. Surfshark – The disruptive new kid in town is offering the best deal.
  4. ExpressVPN – The best general-purpose VPN in the industry.
  5. IPVanish – The best option when it comes to multi-device support.

What makes these providers best for New Zealand

Suppose you want to find out who the best provider is in the VPN market for New Zealand. In that case, you need to know the relevant features, look for them among the industry options, and then evaluate them systematically, objectively, and thoroughly. That’s what we did while preparing this guide, which we’ll keep updating regularly.

The critical features you need to have in a good VPN service are these:

Transfer speeds

Your ISP can give you a very high-quality service with the top speeds in the market. But once you activate your VPN, all your traffic will be repackaged and transferred through the service’s encrypted tunnel. Therefore, a good VPN network must have a speed that can match (or overmatch) your ISP’s, or else you will be losing time and resources.

Besides keeping your activities private, you’re keen on watching video streams through your VPN; connection speeds become even more vital as not every VPN has the bandwidth you will need to support an HD video stream. Be aware that high bandwidth costs money, so free VPNs, or even cheap ones, won’t do.

Server location

If you’re going to be in New Zealand, it would be optimal that the VPN service you choose has servers in that country, too (as well as many others worldwide for specific tasks like unblocking geo-restricted material and catalogs). A question as old as the egg and chicken question in any market has always been, “is it better to have quality or quantity?”

Well, I am the first to point out in all my technical writings that the most crucial thing in a VPN network is the bandwidth and computing power it has in each node, rather than the sheer number of nodes. However, the number of servers in the network does matter as it translates into service availability and physical proximity. So, as a rule of thumb, we never recommend any VPN service with a network with fewer than 100 servers.