Mullvad does not keep logs. That claim has been tested more rigorously than most VPN providers would ever want: not by a paid audit firm, but by Swedish law enforcement who actually seized Mullvad’s servers.
Here is what happened, what was found, and how Mullvad’s current infrastructure compares to its competitors.
What happened in April 2023
On April 18, 2023, Swedish police officers from the National Operations Department arrived at Mullvad’s offices in Gothenburg with a court order authorizing the seizure of computer equipment. The officers were looking for evidence relevant to a criminal investigation.
Mullvad’s staff allowed the seizure to proceed. The officers took several servers from the facility.
Within hours, they returned them. There was nothing on them. No connection logs, no IP addresses, no timestamps, no session data. The servers were RAM-only, meaning data that is not retained to disk does not survive a reboot or power cycle. When the servers were powered down for seizure, any transient data that existed was irretrievably gone.
This is the most credible possible evidence of a working no-logs policy, and it is worth more than any number of audit reports. Audit firms test what a company allows them to test. Police with a court order test the actual production infrastructure under adversarial conditions.
What Mullvad’s privacy architecture actually looks like
Mullvad operates what privacy researchers call a “no-knowledge” model: the service is designed so that Mullvad itself cannot identify who you are, even if it wanted to.
Account system: Mullvad account numbers are generated randomly and never linked to an email address, phone number, or personal identity. You receive a 16-digit number. That is your account. If you lose it, Mullvad cannot help you recover it.
Payment: Mullvad accepts cash sent by mail, Monero, Bitcoin, and bank transfers. If you pay with cash, Mullvad has no payment record connecting you to your account number. For users who pay with a credit card, there is a payment record, but it is held by the payment processor, not linked to any activity data on Mullvad’s servers.
RAM-only servers: Every Mullvad server runs entirely in RAM. No data is written to disk. A power cycle wipes everything. The 2023 police raid confirmed this in practice.
No connection metadata: Mullvad does not log connection start times, end times, duration, or data volume. Standard VPN provider practices often retain some of this metadata even under “no-logs” policies. Mullvad’s architecture makes retaining it structurally impossible.
Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.
Independent audits
In addition to the real-world police test, Mullvad has completed four security audits with Cure53, one of the most respected independent security audit firms for privacy software. The audits covered client applications (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android), the browser extension, and server infrastructure.
Cure53’s findings across four audits have been consistent: some medium and low severity issues have been identified and remediated, but no critical vulnerabilities, and no evidence of logging practices inconsistent with Mullvad’s stated policy.
Mullvad publishes the full audit reports, including the finding of issues, on its transparency page. This is worth noting: some VPN providers only publish audit reports when the results are entirely clean.
How Mullvad compares on logs
| Provider | Logs Policy | Audited | Real Test | RAM-Only | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mullvad | No logs | 4 audits | Yes (police raid 2023) | Yes | 4.2/5 |
| NordVPN | No logs | 7 audits | No | Yes | 4.6/5 |
| ProtonVPN | No logs | 4 audits + SOC 2 | No | Partial | 4.3/5 |
| Surfshark | No logs | 2 audits | No | No | 4.1/5 |
| ExpressVPN | No logs | 2 audits | No | No | 3.7/5 |
The “real test” column is where Mullvad is unique. No other major VPN has had its infrastructure seized by law enforcement with zero retrievable data. Until another provider is subjected to the same test and passes, Mullvad occupies a distinct category.
What Mullvad does not do well
Mullvad scores 4.2/5 overall, behind NordVPN (4.6) and ProtonVPN (4.3), for reasons unrelated to logging:
Its server network is smaller (around 800 servers in 49 countries) than NordVPN (6,300+) or Surfshark. This means fewer options for geo-unblocking streaming content, and more congestion on popular servers.
Streaming support is limited. Mullvad does not market itself as a streaming VPN, and in practice it is inconsistent at unblocking Netflix international libraries, BBC iPlayer, and similar services. If streaming is part of why you want a VPN, Mullvad is not the right tool.
The interface, while functional, is less polished than NordVPN or Surfshark. The account number system (no username, no email) is great for privacy but inconvenient for users who want a conventional account experience.
Should you trust Mullvad with sensitive traffic?
For users with a genuine privacy threat model, such as journalists, activists, lawyers, or anyone in a high-surveillance context, Mullvad’s combination of no-knowledge architecture, RAM-only servers, anonymous account system, and a proven police-resistance event makes it the most defensible choice.
For average users whose primary concern is ISP tracking, public Wi-Fi risk, and streaming geo-restrictions, NordVPN or ProtonVPN are better all-around choices that do not sacrifice as much on streaming and server coverage.
Mullvad keeps no logs, and this has been proven in the most direct way possible: police seized its servers and found nothing. Its privacy architecture is the most rigorous among major commercial VPNs. The trade-off is limited streaming support and a smaller server network. For high-threat users, there is no better option. For general use, NordVPN or ProtonVPN are stronger all-rounders.
Keep reading: Mullvad Review 2026: The Privacy Purist’s VPN and How to Verify a VPN’s No-Logs Policy: What Audits Actually Check.