Does a VPN hide your IP address? Who still sees what

Yes. A VPN hides your IP address from the websites, apps, game servers and email recipients you connect to, because they see the VPN server's address instead of yours. It does not hide your address from the VPN company, and it does not hide from your Wi-Fi owner or internet provider that you are online, only where you go.

Who sees what depends on where they sit between you and the site. Here is each one in turn.

How a VPN hides your IP address

Your internet provider gives your connection a public IP address. Every site you visit sees it, because replies need somewhere to go. Google's help page on how it estimates your location puts it plainly: IP addresses "are roughly based on geography", so any website you use "may get some information about your general area."

A VPN puts an encrypted tunnel between your device and a VPN server. Your traffic leaves the server and goes on to the site from there. The EFF's guide to choosing a VPN describes the result: your data appears to come from the VPN, and "from a website's point of view, it appears your location is wherever the VPN server is."

So the VPN does not erase your IP address. It replaces the one other people see with the server's.

Who sees your IP address with a VPN on

Who	Without a VPN	With a VPN on
Websites	Your real IP and rough area	The VPN server's IP and its area
Apps and game servers	Your real IP	The VPN server's IP
People you email	Sometimes, depending on route	The VPN server's IP, where any is visible
Wi-Fi owner (home, coffee shop, hotel)	Your device and the sites you reach	Your device, and that it talks to a VPN server
Your internet provider	Your IP and the sites you reach	Your IP, and that it talks to a VPN server
The VPN company	Nothing	Your real IP and your traffic

Websites

Websites see the VPN server's address. If a site guesses your location, it guesses the server's area. On Google Search, the location note at the bottom of the results page says "From your internet address" when it came from your IP.

Google lists other location sources too: your device's location if you allow it, home and work addresses saved in your account, and your past activity when you are signed in. A VPN changes none of those. If you are logged in, the site still knows it is you.

Apps

Apps work the same way for the network address. The difference is that many apps also ask for your phone's location. Apple says Location Services works out where you are from cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. None of that comes from your IP, so a VPN does not move it. We cover this for Find My on iPhone.

Some apps mix the two. Roblox's account location page says it detects your region from "device signals including your IP address", and that "if you are using a VPN connection, the accuracy of your location may be affected."

Email recipients

An IP address can reach someone through email in three ways: the headers of mail you send, a tracking pixel in mail you open, and a link you click. A VPN swaps your address for the server's in all three, because each one depends on your connection. It does not stop a pixel from recording that you opened the message. The full breakdown, with a two-minute test, is in can someone see your IP address from an email.

The Wi-Fi owner

Whoever runs the router, at home, at work or in a coffee shop, gave your device its local address in the first place. A VPN cannot hide that your device is on their network. What it hides is everything after that: the EFF says a VPN hides your outgoing traffic from the local network owner. They see one encrypted stream going to one VPN server. More on that in can the Wi-Fi owner see your history.

Your internet provider

Same idea. Your provider assigned your IP address, so it always knows it. With a VPN on, it sees that you connect to a VPN server, when, and how much data moves, but not the sites inside the tunnel. See can your ISP see your browsing history for the version without a VPN.

The VPN company

The VPN company sees your real IP address, because you connect to it. The EFF notes that while a VPN hides your browsing data from the ISP, "it's all visible to the VPN provider." That is why the provider you pick matters more than the app. We go into it in can your VPN see your browsing history.

How a VPN can still leak your IP address

A VPN can be connected and still let your real address out. Two leaks cause most of it.

WebRTC leaks

WebRTC is the browser technology behind video calls in a tab. To set up a call, it gathers the addresses your device can be reached on, and a web page can ask for them. The IETF's RFC 8828 says that with some VPN setups, "WebRTC can discover not only the public address for the VPN, but also the ISP public address over which the VPN is running." It can also expose your private local address on a home network.

It is a browser issue, so it can differ from one browser to the next. Our glossary has a short WebRTC leak definition.

DNS leaks

Every site visit starts with a DNS lookup that turns a name like example.com into an address. If those lookups go to your internet provider's servers while everything else goes through the tunnel, the sites never see your IP, but your provider still gets a list of names you looked up. That is a DNS leak. Pages load normally while it happens, which is why people miss it.

A third, IPv6, matters on connections that have both an old and a new style address. If the VPN only carries one, the other can go around it.

To check all of this in about five minutes, follow how to tell if your VPN is working. It has a pass and fail for each test.

What a VPN does not hide

Who you are when logged in. Accounts, cookies and saved logins identify you whatever address you come from.
Your phone's location. GPS, Wi-Fi and cell tower location is separate from your IP.
That you use a VPN. Your provider and the Wi-Fi owner can see the connection to a VPN server.
Your address from the VPN company. See above.

For the full list across every observer, see what does a VPN hide.

Frequently asked questions

Does a VPN hide your IP address from your ISP?

No. Your provider assigned that address, so it always knows it. What a VPN hides from your provider is which sites you visit, because that traffic travels inside the encrypted tunnel.

Does a VPN hide your IP address and location?

It hides the location that comes from your IP. Sites see the VPN server's area instead. Location from GPS, Wi-Fi or cell towers on your phone, or from a saved address in your account, is not affected.

Does a VPN hide your IP address from police?

It hides it from the sites you visit, not from the VPN company, which sees your real address when you connect. A VPN is a privacy tool, not a way around legal process.

Does a VPN hide your IP address on iPhone?

Yes, for traffic that goes through the VPN. The iPhone still uses Location Services for apps that ask for your location, and that does not change.

Does a VPN hide your IP from the router?

No. The router gave your device its local address. It can see that your device sends encrypted traffic to a VPN server, but not what is inside.

Does a VPN change your IP address every time?

It depends on the provider and server. Most often you get the address of whichever server you connect to, so changing servers changes the address sites see.

Where Secria fits

If you want sites and apps to see a server's address instead of yours, Secria VPN is post-quantum on every connection and runs on RAM-only servers. No activity logs: we do not record browsing, DNS queries or traffic contents. It costs $7.99 a month, or comes with Secria Mail and VPN on 5 devices in Secria Pro at $9.99 a month. See pricing.