Best VPN for Serie A and Bundesliga 2026: Stream Every Match Abroad

Serie A returns on August 23, 2026, and the Bundesliga follows on August 28, its latest start in years due to the FIFA World Cup 2026 calendar. If you’re outside Italy or Germany and want to follow your club through the new season, here’s how to get past the geo-blocks.

Why Serie A and Bundesliga streams get blocked abroad

Both leagues sell broadcasting rights on a country-by-country basis. DAZN and Sky hold Serie A rights in Italy, while Sky Deutschland and DAZN split Bundesliga coverage in Germany. Try to stream either from outside the relevant country, even with a valid subscription, and you’ll typically hit a geographic block enforced by IP detection.

A VPN solves this by connecting you through a server in Italy or Germany, making your connection appear local to the broadcaster. This is standard practice for expats, travelers, and fans who’ve moved abroad but kept their subscription.

Best VPNs for Serie A and Bundesliga in 2026

NordVPN: the most reliable for match days

NordVPN scored a perfect 5/5 for both speed and streaming in our testing, backed by servers across both Italy and Germany. Its SmartPlay routing automatically finds a working server, which matters when you’re trying to catch kickoff and don’t have time to troubleshoot.

Football streams are especially sensitive to buffering during high-traffic moments like goals or controversial VAR reviews, when everyone’s connection spikes at once. NordVPN’s speed scores hold up under that kind of load better than most competitors in our tests.

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Surfshark: best value for a full season

A football season is a long commitment, and Surfshark’s pricing plus unlimited device connections make it the practical choice if you want to cover a laptop, a phone, and a smart TV without juggling a device limit across 38 gameweeks of Serie A or 34 of Bundesliga.

ProtonVPN: for fans who care about privacy too

ProtonVPN scored 5/5 on speed and 4/5 on streaming, with the bonus of an independently audited no-logs policy and Swiss jurisdiction. If you’d rather not hand over more data than necessary just to watch a match, it’s the more privacy-conscious pick without a real drop in streaming quality.

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Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.

How to stream Serie A or Bundesliga with a VPN

Subscribe to the broadcaster that holds rights in the relevant country, DAZN or Sky for Serie A, Sky Deutschland or DAZN for the Bundesliga. Install your VPN on the device you’ll watch on. Connect to a server in Italy for Serie A or Germany for the Bundesliga. Log into the broadcaster’s app or site as you normally would from within that country. If a stream fails to load, switch to a different server in the same country rather than assuming the VPN itself is broken.

For smart TVs and streaming boxes without native VPN support, set up the VPN on your home router instead. That covers every connected device automatically, which is worth doing once before the season starts rather than mid-match on opening weekend.

Match-day tips for a smoother stream

Connect a few minutes before kickoff rather than the moment the match starts. Broadcaster servers and VPN networks both see traffic spikes right at kickoff, and getting connected early avoids the worst of it. If you’re watching a high-profile derby or a match involving one of the traditionally larger clubs, expect heavier server load and have a backup server picked out in advance.

If you travel between countries during the season and want consistent access to the same broadcaster regardless of where you physically are, stick to the same VPN server location every time rather than switching based on your actual country. This also avoids triggering account flags on services that watch for logins from unusual or rapidly changing locations.

Why the delayed Bundesliga start matters this year

The Bundesliga’s August 28 kickoff, five days later than usual because of the FIFA World Cup 2026 calendar shift, means the two leagues’ openings sit closer together than in a typical year, with Serie A already a week in by the time German clubs take the pitch. If you follow clubs in both leagues, that overlap is worth planning around: expect two country’s worth of opening-weekend traffic hitting broadcaster servers in the same stretch of days, which is exactly when having a backup server picked out in each country pays off.

Watching from a third country

Not every expat or traveler following Serie A or the Bundesliga is doing so from their home country. If you’re in a third country altogether, the same principle applies: connect to a server in Italy for Serie A or Germany for the Bundesliga, regardless of where you’re physically located, since the broadcaster only cares about the IP address your connection presents, not your actual position. This is also why sticking to the same server location consistently, rather than switching between Italian and German servers depending on which match you’re watching that day, is worth doing if you’re logging into a single broadcaster account that covers both, since consistent login geography avoids unnecessary account flags.

Mobile and tablet viewing for weekday fixtures

Serie A and Bundesliga fixtures both include midweek slots alongside the traditional weekend schedule, and midweek matches are disproportionately watched on phones and tablets during a commute or a lunch break rather than on a living room TV. All three recommended providers support the same server access on mobile as on desktop, so the setup is identical, just make sure auto-reconnect is enabled in your VPN app’s settings, since a brief mobile data drop mid-match will otherwise silently revert you to a geo-blocked connection without an obvious warning.

Keep reading: How to Watch the Champions League with a VPN in 2026 and Best VPN for the Premier League in 2026.