Does Proton VPN Keep Logs?

This page is part of the Proton VPN FAQ Hub.

What does a no-logs policy actually promise?

Does Proton VPN keep logs? The question needs a definition before it can be answered usefully, because VPN companies have stretched that phrase shamelessly. Proton’s policy states that it does not record your browsing activity, the timestamps of your connections, how long your sessions last, or which of its servers you connected through. There is no stored history sitting somewhere waiting to be matched back to you.

Compare that with the standard evasion used elsewhere: no activity logs, whilst quietly retaining connection metadata for network management. Connection metadata is frequently enough on its own. Source IP plus timestamps plus bandwidth is the raw material of a correlation, and providers keeping it whilst advertising no logs are relying on nobody reading the definition.

What did the audit actually check?

Proton has commissioned annual independent audits of the no-logs policy, with the reports published rather than merely described. The auditors examine server configurations, infrastructure and internal procedures to establish whether the systems are even capable of producing the logs the policy denies keeping. Recent audits have been carried out by Securitum, and the results are posted publicly each year.

Be clear about the limits. An audit is a snapshot taken by people granted access to specified systems for a specified window. It cannot prove what happens on a server next Tuesday and it cannot rule out a change made later under legal compulsion. What repeated public audits do is make sustained dishonesty expensive and increasingly likely to be discovered, which is a meaningful signal rather than a proof.

What does Proton necessarily hold about you?

Running a service for paying customers requires records, and pretending otherwise would be the least credible claim a VPN could make. Here is what genuinely exists:

None of that reveals what you did whilst connected, which is the narrow sense in which does Proton VPN keep logs gets a no. It does establish that an account exists and that somebody paid for it. If you want to weaken the link between the two, Proton accepts Bitcoin and cash for subscriptions, and the free tier involves no payment record at all, though it still wants an email address at signup.

• The email address used to create your Proton account, which can be an alias or a throwaway.
• A payment record if you subscribe, including the method used and the billing history.
• A timestamp of the last successful login attempt, overwritten each time rather than kept as a running history.
• Aggregate server load figures used for capacity planning, not tied to individual users.
• Any support tickets you have opened, containing whatever you chose to write in them.

Does Proton VPN keep logs on the free plan?

No. The same no-logs policy covers the free tier, which is genuinely unusual, because free VPN apps are overwhelmingly funded by selling the exact data they promise not to collect. The company behind Proton VPN funds its free tier from paid subscriptions, and that is the only model under which a free no-logs VPN makes commercial sense at all.

The free plan is limited in other ways: fewer countries, slower speeds when the network is busy, one device, no NetShield and no streaming support. Proton VPN Plus removes those limits and covers ten devices, but the logging position is identical across both tiers. Choose between them on speed and features, not on privacy.

How does Swiss law affect logging?

Switzerland imposes no mandatory data retention obligation on VPN providers of the kind that applies to telecoms operators, and Proton has argued that position in Swiss court. That is why the no-logs stance is legally sustainable there in a way it would not be in several jurisdictions that keep retention statutes on the books.

Do not read that as immunity. Proton can still be served with orders from Swiss authorities, and its transparency report shows that it is. An order can compel a provider to start collecting data about a specific account going forward, which is a very different thing from surrendering a history that was never kept. The absence of stored logs is the protection here, not the jurisdiction on its own.

Is a no-logs claim enough to choose on?

It is necessary and it is nowhere near sufficient. Every VPN on the market advertises no logs, including several later shown in court filings to have been keeping them. What separates the claims is verification: published audit reports, open source clients, a transparency report with real numbers in it, and a corporate structure you can actually identify.

Proton scores well on all four, which is why it survives scrutiny better than most of its competitors. It is still a company, subject to law and capable of error, and treating any single provider as beyond question is how people talk themselves into trouble. Buy it for what it demonstrably does, not for a promise of perfect secrecy that nobody can keep.

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