Yes. Using a VPN in India is legal, and millions of people do it every day. What changed is the paperwork behind the scenes.
In April 2022 CERT-In, the government's cybersecurity agency, issued a directive requiring VPN providers with servers inside India to record subscriber names, addresses and phone numbers, the IP addresses they hand out and the times people connect, and to keep all of it for five years. After a three-month delay, the rule took effect in late September 2022.
Several providers responded by removing their Indian hardware rather than start logging.
What this means for you is straightforward: the directive is addressed to providers, not to the people using them. There is no penalty for connecting to a VPN in India, and none for having one installed on your phone or in your browser.
There is one thing a VPN cannot do, and it is worth saying plainly. It cannot defeat a full internet shutdown. India recorded 65 shutdowns in 2025, more than any other democracy, and when mobile data is cut in a district there is no connection left to encrypt. Against a single blocked app or a throttled service, which is the far more common case, routing around your operator works.
In April 2022 CERT-In, the government's cybersecurity agency, issued a directive requiring VPN providers with servers inside India to record subscriber names, addresses and phone numbers, the IP addresses they hand out and the times people connect, and to keep all of it for five years. After a three-month delay, the rule took effect in late September 2022.
Several providers responded by removing their Indian hardware rather than start logging.
What this means for you is straightforward: the directive is addressed to providers, not to the people using them. There is no penalty for connecting to a VPN in India, and none for having one installed on your phone or in your browser.
There is one thing a VPN cannot do, and it is worth saying plainly. It cannot defeat a full internet shutdown. India recorded 65 shutdowns in 2025, more than any other democracy, and when mobile data is cut in a district there is no connection left to encrypt. Against a single blocked app or a throttled service, which is the far more common case, routing around your operator works.
