Whether you are traveling overseas for a little while and want to be able to watch your favorite shows on Netflix, or live in a country where Netflix’s library isn’t as good as some of the others, one of the most annoying things that can happen to you is being geoblocked.
Once Netflix knows you have left your own country and have entered another one, you will no longer be able to view your home country’s content; you are restricted to streaming Netflix TV shows and movies that are available in your physical location’s library.
This is known as geoblocking and it happens due to content agreements and licensing restrictions. Netflix would love to provide a global library where all countries have access to the same TV shows and movies, but this simply isn’t possible.
Luckily, it is very easy to bypass Netflix geoblocking by using a reliable VPN like NordVPN.
Using a VPN to Unblock Netflix
When you use a VPN and connect to one of its servers, it tells Netflix that you are physically located in the country of the server you are connected to.
So, say you are visiting the UK and want to stream a US Netflix TV show such as The Office, you would connect to a US server on NordVPN and watch it via Netflix as normal.
Want to watch a French TV show? Connect to a VPN server in France.
Want to watch Planet Earth? Connect to a VPN server in the UK.
You get the idea!
We Recommend Using NordVPN
NordVPN’s lightning-fast servers, of which there are thousands throughout the world, make it perfect for bypassing Netflix’s geoblocking and streaming your favorite content.
Using NordVPN to connect to the UK from the U.S., we are going to show you how it works.
1. First, download, install, and launch NordVPN
While you do need to buy a subscription to use NordVPN, your money is safe thanks to their 30-day money-back guarantee. Click the link on the sidebar and try it free.
If you aren’t completely satisfied with NordVPN after you have subscribed to one of their plans, you can simply ask customer support for a refund and they will take it from there. There are no usage limits or strings attached—if you want a refund, you can get one easily.
When the NordVPN installation wizard has worked its magic, NordVPN will launch and look like this.
2. Connect to a server (in this case, the UK)
You can either click on the icon above the country of your choice to connect to its most optimum server for you. Alternatively, select the country from the left-hand list. It will take around 30 seconds to connect. Once it has done, you should see something similar to this—
3. Start streaming content
It really is as simple as that. You should now be able to access UK exclusives such as The Office UK and The Crown.
Very, very rarely, a NordVPN server might not work with Netflix. If this is the case, you will get this error when trying to stream anything—
This happens when a server is caught by Netflix and identified as belonging to a VPN. When they are caught, they get blocked by Netflix to prevent geoblocking. With good VPNs such as NordVPN, servers that get caught are removed and very quickly replaced with new ones.
To get around this problem, simply connect to a different server in the country of your choice. You can do this by using the left-hand server selection list and clicking the three dots (. . .) that open server selection dropdowns.
If a country only has one or two servers and both are blocked, contact NordVPN customer support and they will escalate the issue to their technical team.
How to Find Out if NordVPN Works With Netflix
The proof is really in the pudding with this one. When you have connected to NordVPN, the only way to find out if you have successfully bypassed geoblocking is to try and stream content that would otherwise be geoblocked.
Returning to our example above, we searched for some UK exclusive Netflix shows when we were connected to the UK and also for some US ones.
When we searched for The Crown, it showed up and we were able to stream it.
When we searched for The Office, however, only the UK version showed up, not the US one.
We also couldn’t find other US exclusives such as The West Wing when connected to the UK.
This demonstrates that we were successfully past the geoblock for UK content. We couldn’t find any US content whatsoever and we were able to stream from the UK library.
Another good sign that you have bypassed geoblocking is if the language changes when connected to a country where the first language isn’t English, in this case, Mexico.
NordVPN SmartPlay Makes the Job A Lot Easier
Using NordVPN’s SmartPlay technology, you can not only bypass geoblocking through Netflix but over 150 different streaming services including BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video.
There is no need to go hunting for streaming-optimized servers because all of NordVPN’s ones are as standard—they all use SmartPlay and are lightning-fast.
SmartPlay combines the features of NordVPN alongside what is known as SmartDNS—a tool that once had to be used standalone to fetch content through a proxy that hides your location—to automatically and consistently bring you content from other countries’ streaming libraries.
You don’t need to set it up, either. SmartDNS is an automatic feature that steps in when NordVPN detects that you are trying to stream content across the entire range of NordVPN native device apps.
Whether you are on your desktop, game console, or smartphone, you can easily stream geoblocked content with NordVPN. And this is why, in our opinion, it is the best VPN for streaming.
NordVPN’s Servers Also Make it a Great Option for Streaming
NordVPN offers, at the time of writing, 5,225 servers across 62 countries, this is a higher number of servers than any other VPN provider.
With such a huge breadth of servers and locations, you are never going to run out of content to stream through Netflix. Unlike other VPN providers that only offer certain locations optimized for streaming (e.g. CyberGhost), NordVPN works across the board to bypass geoblocking because of SmartPlay.
Try NordVPN for Free* Today
You can try out NordVPN out today for free* by taking advantage of their 30-day money-back guarantee that has no strings or restrictions attached.
Not satisfied with NordVPN? Simply reach out to their 24/7 customer support team either via email or live chat and ask for a refund, they will process it for you straight away and your money will be deposited back to your original payment method within 3 business days.
*Although you do need to pay for a NordVPN subscription, we are saying you can try NordVPN ‘free’ because of their money-back guarantee.
