ExpressVPN Free: How to Use It for 30 Days Without Paying

ExpressVPN’s order page lists three plans, and none of them is free. There’s no free tier in the app either, which is why searches for a free ExpressVPN account turn up shared logins and cracked downloads.

Two official routes still let you use it without paying, and they work differently: one goes through ExpressVPN, the other through Apple or Google. Choose the wrong one, and the refund you counted on may not exist.

How to Get ExpressVPN Free Trial for 30 Days: Tutorial

ExpressVPN doesn’t call it a free trial, but its 30-day money-back guarantee works like one. It covers every plan bought on ExpressVPN’s website, and you don’t have to give a reason for the refund.

Two conditions apply, however. The guarantee is for first-time customers only, and plans bought through the App Store or Google Play fall outside it.

Get a Subscription

Start on ExpressVPN’s website. The two-year Basic plan has the lowest monthly rate, at about $3 a month for 28 months, but you pay for the whole term upfront. If you already plan to ask for a refund, the monthly plan costs less at checkout, and the guarantee covers it as well.

After that, choose a payment method, pay, and install ExpressVPN on your devices. Once you sign in, nothing is locked: every server, setting, and add-on in your plan is available from day one.

So for the next month, you can stream Netflix from another country, get a new IP address, or encrypt your traffic on public Wi-Fi, exactly as a paying subscriber would.

Request a Refund from ExpressVPN

To end the free month, open the live chat on ExpressVPN’s website and ask for a refund under the 30-day money-back guarantee. The agent checks your account email and confirms the request.

If the agent asks why you’re leaving, a short answer is enough, such as that you only wanted to test it. The agent may also offer a discount to keep you, which you can decline.

The refund goes back to the payment method you used, so the full month costs nothing in the end. Email works too, but the chat confirms the refund on the spot. Timing is the one thing to watch. Send the request a few days before day 30, not on the last evening, in case the agent requires details.

After the window closes, you can only cancel the renewal, and the money already paid remains with ExpressVPN. Also, the guarantee works once per customer, so an account or payment method that was refunded before won’t qualify again.

The 3-Day Free Trial on iPhone and Android

ExpressVPN’s only true free trial goes through the App Store and Google Play. It lasts three days and starts in the mobile app, but it requires a payment method on your Apple or Google account. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, Apple or Google bills the plan you selected.

Because that’s an app store purchase, ExpressVPN’s 30-day guarantee doesn’t cover it. The trial isn’t limited to the phone. When I signed in to ExpressVPN on a Windows PC with a mobile trial account, it connected normally. To cancel on an iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, and choose ExpressVPN.

Try ExpressVPN for Free Now

On Android, open Google Play, tap your profile icon, and go to Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions. Older guides mention a seven-day trial, but ExpressVPN now offers three days. The two routes compare like this:

	30-day money-back guarantee	3-day mobile trial
Where it starts	ExpressVPN’s website	App Store or Google Play
Payment upfront	Yes, refunded on request	No, billed after day 3
Devices	Every device	Every device, once signed in
How to stop it	Refund through live chat or email	Cancel in the app store

What You Can Use During the 30 Days

The refund route unlocks the same ExpressVPN that subscribers pay for, which makes the month a fair test of one of the best VPNs money can buy. In our speed tests, it lost 7.8% of our speed on average across UK, US, and Japanese servers, tied with NordVPN for the smallest loss we recorded.

For streaming, it unblocked all 14 services we tested, including Netflix US and Japan, BBC iPlayer, and HBO Max. The Basic plan covers 10 devices at once, and higher plans go up to 14, with servers in 113 countries.

Advanced Protection, its blocker for ads, trackers, and malicious sites, comes on every plan as well. Our ExpressVPN review covers the rest of its results.

ExpressVPN Free Accounts and Activation Codes

ExpressVPN has no free plan, so the free accounts, logins, and activation codes posted online are stolen or fake. A shared login stops working as soon as ExpressVPN detects the abuse, and modified setup files or APKs are a common way to spread malware.

For that reason, the refund and the mobile trial are the only safe ways to use it at no cost. The team behind ExpressVPN did launch EventVPN in 2025, a separate free VPN with ads for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. However, it’s a different app with a smaller server list, not a free version of ExpressVPN.

Why Not Just Use a Free VPN Instead?

A free VPN costs nothing for as long as you use it, but the trade-offs show up quickly. Most limit your monthly data, slow down at busy times, and can’t unblock streaming services. Worse, some free VPNs make money from your data: Hola, for instance, shares its users’ devices and connections with a data company.

Reputable free plans do exist. Proton VPN’s free plan, for example, has no data cap and a strong privacy record, but it doesn’t let you choose a server and isn’t built for streaming. By contrast, ExpressVPN’s free month has no data limits and the full server list.

If you’d like longer to decide, the CyberGhost free trial explains how its 45-day money-back guarantee on longer plans works.

Conclusion

ExpressVPN isn’t free, yet a full month of it can be. Subscribe on its website, use every feature, and ask for your money back in the live chat a few days before the 30 days run out. That route works on any device and requires no app store.

The mobile trial suits a quicker look, but it charges automatically unless you cancel a day ahead, and that charge falls outside ExpressVPN’s guarantee. Shared accounts and cracked downloads, meanwhile, aren’t worth the risk.

If the month convinces you, simply keep the plan you bought. Otherwise, test it out on the devices you use most, so the refund decision rests on your own results.

Try ExpressVPN Risk-Free

---

FAQ