▶️ YouTube Ads over VPN

Whether ads are shown is decided by YouTube itself, based on the IP address and a combination of account signals. Neither the VPN nor the hosting influences that decision, which is why ads disappear through some locations and remain through others.

There are no guarantees here

YouTube's rules change without notice: a location that showed no ads a month ago may start showing them. What follows is what we know from practice, not a promise.

Where Google itself disabled advertising

Advertising and monetisation are blocked in these regions:

Region	Note
🇷🇺 Russia	ads were disabled by Google in spring 2022; the system recognises Russian users even outside the country from a combination of account signals
🇨🇺 Cuba
🇮🇷 Iran
🇰🇵 North Korea
🇸🇾 Syria
🇸🇩 Sudan

Where YouTube has no advertising programme

In these countries the local ad market has not launched or is not monetised by the platform, so ads in videos usually disappear when connecting through their IP addresses:

🇦🇱 Albania (the most popular location among VPN users) · 🇲🇩 Moldova · 🇲🇲 Myanmar · 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan · 🇦🇲 Armenia · 🇲🇳 Mongolia · 🇧🇸 Bahamas · 🇧🇳 Brunei · 🇰🇭 Cambodia · 🇱🇦 Laos · 🇲🇬 Madagascar · 🇲🇻 Maldives · 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire · 🇲🇴 Macao

What you can do on your side

If ads do show through your location, client-side options help:

Platform	Option
Browsers	the uBlock Origin extension
Browsers	an alternative link of the form https://yout-ube.com/watch?v=ID — e.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SdxteCtjXJ8 → https://yout-ube.com/watch?v=SdxteCtjXJ8
Android TV	the SmartTube app
Android phones	the YouTube ReVanced project

The most predictable option, with no caveats at all, is a YouTube Premium subscription — it removes ads regardless of location and IP address.

A server's location is not the same as its country in the databases

Sometimes a service resolves the server's country differently from what you ordered, because GeoIP databases lag behind. See Why your server's geolocation mismatches.