Key facts, Iran, August 2026
- 21 of 25 platforms are confirmed blocked on most Iranian networks measured, 1 more shows isolated confirmed blocks, and 2 (Wikipedia (EN), Google Search) are accessible.
- The websites of all 8 VPN providers we could measure are confirmed blocked, at 81.7% to 87.1% of measurements (TotalVPN returned no measurements). The page you would use to buy or download a VPN is itself unreachable from most measured networks.
- Blocking spans every category in the test list — social, messaging, news and video, circumvention tools and VPN provider sites. Iran is the one country in the index where the measured picture needs no hedging.
- Nothing changed since July 2026. Every platform kept the status it had; the blocks confirmed then are still confirmed now.
Free to quote with attribution to vpnrank.io and to OONI as the data source. Please state the measurement window — a censorship figure without its window is not a fact.
Every platform we measure, and its status inside Iran
Each row is one platform tested from networks inside Iran during August 2026. “Confirmed rate” is the share of measurements in which OONI confirmed the block — a DNS answer pointing at a block page, a reset connection, a served block notice — divided by all measurements of that platform. Anomalies that OONI could not confirm are shown separately and never added to it.
| Platform | Category | Status in Iran | Confirmed rate | Anomaly rate | Measurements |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok | Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 81.3% | 7.1% | 2,462 |
| Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 75.1% | 15.7% | 4,841 | |
| Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 74.7% | 15.4% | 5,090 | |
| Twitter (twitter.com) | Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 71.1% | 19.3% | 4,510 |
| X (x.com) | Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 68.2% | 19.7% | 2,453 |
| Social platforms | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 63.2% | 21.3% | 2,277 | |
| Signal | Messaging | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 69.8% | 19.3% | 2,045 |
| Discord | Messaging | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 67.5% | 20.4% | 2,424 |
| Telegram | Messaging | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 56.6% | 36.6% | 2,138 |
| Netflix | News and video | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 87.0% | 8.5% | 177 |
| YouTube | News and video | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 68.3% | 21.6% | 4,348 |
| BBC | News and video | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 63.0% | 25.7% | 746 |
| The New York Times | News and video | Isolated confirmed blocks | 1.1% | 1.4% | 368 |
| Wikipedia (EN) | Reference and search | Accessible | 0.0% | 1.4% | 139 |
| Google Search | Reference and search | Accessible | 0.0% | 0.0% | 163 |
| Tor Project | Circumvention tools | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 84.4% | 9.7% | 186 |
| Private Internet Access | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 87.1% | 7.7% | 194 |
| IPVanish | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 86.5% | 10.0% | 200 |
| NordVPN | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 84.7% | 11.0% | 209 |
| Surfshark | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 83.6% | 10.4% | 220 |
| CyberGhost | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 83.2% | 9.8% | 214 |
| PureVPN | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 83.2% | 12.2% | 196 |
| ExpressVPN | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 82.5% | 11.3% | 212 |
| Proton VPN | VPN provider sites | Blocked — confirmed on most networks | 81.7% | 14.3% | 224 |
| TotalVPN | VPN provider sites | Not measured | — | — | — |
The VPN providers’ own websites are blocked
The VPN-provider category is the reason we built the target list ourselves rather than reusing a standard one. These are the providers in our own database — the set we recommend from — and we measured their public websites the same way we measured everything else. In Iran, 8 of the 8 we could measure are confirmed blocked, at 81.7% to 87.1% of measurements. TotalVPN returned no measurements at all — OONI’s test lists do not appear to cover the domain, so it is reported as unmeasured and must not be read as unblocked.
The practical reading is narrow and worth stating precisely, because the tempting version is wrong. This does not show that a VPN fails to work in Iran; it shows that the pages you would use to obtain one are unreachable from most measured Iranian networks. The consequence is about sequence rather than capability — the moment to install and pay for a tool is before you are behind the border that blocks its shop.
Practical ruleA country that blocks circumvention websites has made the download, not the connection, the scarce step. Install and test before you land. Which VPNs we tested for Iran, and with which obfuscation protocol, is on the Iran VPN guide.
What changed since July 2026
No platform changed status between July 2026 and August 2026. Iran had 21 platforms confirmed blocked at national scale in July 2026 and 21 in August 2026. A month without movement is itself the finding: this is a settled regime, not a wave of new blocks.
What this measures, and what it does not
Reachability, not service. OONI’s web connectivity test checks whether a domain resolves and answers from inside the country. A platform that loads may still refuse to serve Iranian users; a blocked website says nothing about whether an already-installed app connects.
Confirmed and anomalous are different claims. A confirmed block has a signature — a block page, a poisoned DNS answer, a reset. An anomaly is a measurement that failed for a reason OONI could not attribute. The two are reported in separate columns above and are never summed, because merging them is the most common way a censorship figure becomes wrong.
Thin coverage is labelled, not hidden. Below 30 measurements a platform is reported as not measured. In Iran that applies to TotalVPN.
Method, thresholds and the country-by-platform matrix for all 181 countries are on the full internet censorship index. Data: OONI, OONI data is published under a Creative Commons licence — credit OONI by name with a link in anything published from this file.. Pull script and thresholds are versioned with the site.