Australian VPN Providers: Five Companies Under Australian Law
Five services in the VPNRadarLab ranking have Australian incorporation behind them, and the leader, Lokinet, scores just 2.41. TrueVPN follows at 2.33, Celo VPN at 2.13. Want an Australian IP address? That depends on server location, so see the list of VPNs with servers in Australia. This page answers a narrower question: which providers answer to Australian law, and what that law can demand of them. Read more
Sorted by this page’s weighting: Privacy and jurisdiction weighs 45% on this page. Each row also shows the overall score.
Ready-made lists
- Works under heavy blocking
- Anonymous
- Honest free
- Trial without a card
- No price rise at renewal
- Netflix and streaming
- Gaming
- For business
All filters by topic: Price and payment · Anonymity and privacy · VPN security · VPN protocols · VPNs by platform · VPNs by use case · Travel and restrictions · VPN jurisdictions · VPN servers by country · VPN customer support · VPN segments
| # | Service | Page score | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lokinet (Oxen/Session) | 2.41overall 2.16 | — |
| 2 | TrueVPN | 2.33overall 2.61 | €2.57per month |
| 3 | Celo VPN | 2.13overall 2.08 | €4.15per month |
| 4 | dns4me | 0.87overall 1.11 | €2.06per month |
| 5 | Battleping | 0.35overall 0.44 | — |
What Australian law can demand from a local VPN company
Australia helped found the Five Eyes alliance together with the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, and the Australian Signals Directorate handles its signals work. Domestic statutes matter more.
Agencies get three escalating tools from the Assistance and Access Act 2018. A technical assistance request is voluntary, a technical assistance notice compels help the provider can already give, and a technical capability notice can order it to build a new capability, though a systemic weakness cannot be required. Disclosing a notice without authorisation carries up to five years in prison, so silence proves nothing. The Act covers any service with end-users in Australia, and an Australian-registered firm is reached directly.
Metadata retention is a separate story. ISPs and carriers must keep subscriber details, timestamps, session duration and equipment location for two years, with content excluded. Whether a VPN provider counts as a covered carrier has never been tested in court. The Identify and Disrupt Act 2021 then added data disruption, network activity and account takeover warrants for the AFP and ACIC.
Five providers, five different products
Two are consumer subscriptions (TrueVPN, Celo VPN). Lokinet is a decentralised onion-routing network built by the not-for-profit OPTF, and its own FAQ insists it is not a VPN at all. dns4me is a Smart DNS service that proxies only geo-blocked domains. Battleping, a gaming ping reducer for MMOs since 2010, keeps both its prices and its privacy policy unpublished, so it sits outside the main ranking.
Lokinet, TrueVPN and Celo VPN in one table
| Lokinet | TrueVPN | Celo VPN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page score | 2.41 | 2.33 | 2.13 |
| Operator | OPTF (not-for-profit) | not published | Celo Net Pty Ltd, NSW |
| Cheapest paid plan | free, open source | €2.57/mo yearly | €4.15/mo yearly |
| Money-back | n/a | 30 days | 10 days |
| Protocols | LLARP onion routing | OpenVPN, AES-256, PFS | WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, VMess |
| Apps | Windows, Linux | all platforms, routers | all platforms, NAS |
| Network | community nodes | 90 countries, 9700+ servers | 17 countries, 20+ servers |
| No-logs audit | none | none | none |
The weak spot of each
Lokinet wins on privacy alone: neither an account nor an email is needed, and the policy says the connection IP is not stored. Mobile apps are missing, torrents go only through exit nodes and the bypass score is zero, so it fits a Linux desktop better than a phone. TrueVPN owns the widest network here yet forces you into .ovpn profiles inside OpenVPN Connect, without its own client or split tunnelling. Celo VPN bundles port forwarding, a SOCKS5 proxy and an ad blocker across eight devices, but its mobile apps collect device info, usage analytics and crash reports, and cancelling demands 14 days' notice through a contact form.
Why every privacy score stays low
Privacy carries 45% of the page score, and two factors drag everyone down. Five Eyes membership earns zero on the alliance criterion, and no company on this list shows a published third-party review of its no-logs claim. Four claim such a policy; Battleping publishes none. dns4me fares worst: accounts are tied to up to three registered IP zones, meaning the service stores your connection IP by design.
Who an Australian-registered provider suits
Local billing, support in Australian hours and a Smart DNS cure for geo-blocked streaming are legitimate reasons to pick one of these five. Anyone worried about Australian agencies is better served by a company under different jurisdiction.
FAQ
Is using a VPN legal in Australia?
Yes. The tunnel itself is legal; whatever passes through it falls under ordinary law.
Must an Australian VPN company keep metadata?
ISPs and carriers must, for two years. For VPN firms the duty remains untested.
Does an Australian company give me an Australian IP?
Only servers located there do.
Has any of these providers been audited?
No published third-party audit, of logging or of security, is on record for any of these providers.
Australian VPN companies in brief
Five entries, all under Five Eyes law, and no third-party audit on public record for any of them. Lokinet leads through anonymity rather than throughput; TrueVPN offers the largest network but relies on third-party apps; Celo VPN packs protocol variety along with analytics in its apps. The cheapest paid entry costs €2.06 monthly, the median €2.57. Choose one for convenience; for distance from Canberra's warrants, look offshore.