If you’re trying to watch Sling TV outside the US, you’ll notice an error saying, “Sling TV is only available inside the US.”
This can be frustrating, especially if you’re a Sling TV subscriber. However, don’t panic. There’s an easy way to get around this issue.
All you need to do is make Sling TV think you’re accessing its service from inside the US.
This sounds complicated; however it’s very simple. All you need is a reliable VPN.
In this article, I’ll explain how you can get a reliable VPN that will work with Sling TV, and how you can use it to watch Sling TV anywhere in the world.
See also:
- Sling TV not working with VPN? Here’s how to fix that!
- How to watch Peacock outside the US: The EASY way! (June 2021)
- How to watch HBO Max outside the US
- How to watch Paramount+ outside the US: The SIMPLE 2-minute method!
How to watch Sling TV outside the US: Quick Guide
To make Sling TV think you’re inside the US, you need a US IP address.
The easiest way to get one is using a VPN.
All you need to do is follow these simple steps, and you’ll be able to watch Sling TV from anywhere in the world:
Total Time: 2 minutes
Create a new account with ExpressVPN ($6.67/month)
Download and install the new VPN app
Select a server in the US
Watch Sling TV from anywhere in the world
What is Sling TV?
Sing TV is a cable TV alternative that allows users to watch live sports, news, tv shows and movies.
Sling TV lets you watch live TV at a lower price than cable and satellite packages, costing only USD$35/month. You can also sign up for addons like Showtime.
Plans are customisable and Sling TV is compatible with most streaming devices.
Why can’t I access Sling TV outside the US?
The reason you’re running into errors when trying to watch Sling TV outside the US, is all to do with broadcast rights.
Sling TV is a US streaming service that only has the rights to broadcast its content in the US. It does not have international broadcasting rights.
Sling TV uses geo-blocking technology to stop anybody outside the US from accessing its service to protect itself from potential Copyright and licensing issues.
These geo-blocks are the reason you’re running into the “Sling TV is only available inside the US,” error.
How can I get around Sling TV’s geo-blocks?
The way these geo-blocks work is all to do with your IP address.
When you go online, you’re allocated a unique IP address. This IP is used to communicate between your device and the service you’re going to. When you connect to Sling TV, your IP is sent to its service. Sling TV then scans that IP address and sends information back to your device.
For this communication to work, your IP address needs to contain information about your location. When Sling TV scans your IP address, it can see this information, and if it finds you’re outside of the US, it will block your connection.
The way to get around this is to make Sling TV think that you’re watching from inside the US. To do that, you need a VPN that works with Sling TV and can provide a US IP address.
What is a VPN?
A VPN not only provides you with an IP address from a country of your choosing, it also gives you an anonymous internet connection where your location cannot be determined.
VPNs work by encrypting all of your online data and rerouting it through one of their servers. You can choose this server, and the country where it is based is where you’ll get a spoofed IP. Once your data reaches this server, it is decrypted and sent to a local internet service provider.
Basically, all you need to do is subscribe to a VPN, connect to a US server, and you’ll be given a US IP address. Sling TVs geo-blocks will no longer stop you from connecting to its service outside the US.
Will any VPN work?
VPNs have become very popular. One in three people now use VPNs worldwide. Because of this popularity, there has been an influx of both good and bad VPNs.
The bad VPNs have trouble working with Sling TV. This is because Sling TV tries to prevent VPNs from connecting to its service.
It does this because it knows that VPNs effectively allow people to watch its content outside of its broadcast zone.
Sling TV blocks VPNs by monitoring for an abnormal amount of connections coming from the same IP address (where abnormal means more than an average household.) For lesser VPNs, this can be a problem. These VPNs have more customers than IP addresses, and this forces users to share IPs. When Sling TV sees hundreds or thousands of connections coming from the same IP address, it knows that this is a VPN and blocks it.
These VPN blocking techniques can catch even the best VPNs. However, the best VPNs have measures in place to stay one step ahead of these blocks.
VPNs that work with Sling TV
The best VPNs to watch Sling TV are ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month). These VPNs have reliable US servers and a lot of IP addresses. This means you have less chance of sharing an IP with another user.
They also play a game of cat and mouse with Sling TV. If Sling TV identifies and blocks an IP address provided by ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month), these VPNs will close that IP address and open a new one. This allows them to stay one step ahead of Sling TV’s blocking techniques, and it means you can reliably watch Sling TV from anywhere in the world.
The best VPNs to watch Sling TV
1. ExpressVPN 🥇
Why You Should Use ExpressVPN? It’s the fastest and MOST reliable VPN of 2022
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 10-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- ❌ Expensive
Special Offer for you!
Get 3 extra months free when you sign up for a 12-month ExpressVPN plan. That’s 15 months in total for the price of 12.
Number of servers: 3,000+ | Speed: >80% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 160 in 94 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $6.66/month for 15 months
- $9.99/month for 6 months
- $12.95/month for 1 month
ExpressVPN ($6.66/month) is still the best VPN. And importantly, it ALWAYS has servers that are open with major streaming sites such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, etc.
ExpressVPN is usually very good at playing Cat and Mouse with online streaming sites. Meaning, whenever one of its servers is blacklisted it creates a new one – giving its users a constant stream of servers that aren’t blocked. Needless to say, this is a valuable attribute if you’re looking for a VPN to unblock streaming sites.
Its app is easy-to-use and free to download on pretty much any device you can think of. Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, FireStick, Android TV, Roku, PS4, Xbox, Linux, even Apple TV (with a workaround). It’s got it all covered.
The app is another main reason this VPN is so good at unblocking TV streaming sites (that claim they block VPNs) is that its software takes a pragmatic approach to user management. While other VPNs tempt customers by promising them access to hundreds/thousands of servers in multiple countries, ExpressVPN does things differently.
With ExpressVPN you only have a handful of server locations to choose from. Once you select your location the app takes care of the rest. Assigning you to the fastest available server that’s not oversubscribed. This simple technique is so important, as it keeps ExpressVPN’s servers operating at lightning-fast speeds and prevents its IPs from getting blacklisted for “abnormal” usage in the first place.
Check out our full ExpressVPN review.
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(30-day money-back guarantee)
2. Private Internet Access 🥈
The BEST low-cost VPN for streaming!
Pros
- ✅ Fast and reliable servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 10-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- ❌ Only 48 server locations
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for a 3-year plan with Private Internet Access and save 83% + 3 months free. That works out at $2.03/month.
Number of servers: 25,000+ | Speed: >75% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 70 in 74 countries | Devices supported: 10 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $2.03/month for 3 years
- $7.50/month for 6 months
- $11.99/month for 1 month
Private Internet Access is one of the leading no-log VPN services with over 1-million paying customers.
This VPN is one of the best in the industry at beating streaming sites’ VPN bans. It provides reliable connections with US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+ Amazon Prime Video, etc. It also allows 10 simultaneous devices to be connected to its servers at the same time, so you can share the account with your close friends.
If – for whatever reason – you’re not happy with Private Internet Access, there’s a 24/7 live chat support available to assist you with your problem. PIA also offers the industry-standard 30-day money-back guarantee.
From my tests (from New Zealand) I was able to get download speeds of 70 Mbps while connected to a UK server using the Private Internet Access VPN (my non-VPN speed is 100 Mbps).
Special Offer – Save 83%
(30-day money-back guarantee)
3. NordVPN 🥉
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ No logs
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 6-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
Cons
- ❌ No refunds for purchases from iTunes/App store
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for a 3-year plan with Private Internet Access and save 83% + 3 months free. That works out at $2.03/month.
Number of servers: 5,000+ | Speeds: >80% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 62 countries | Devices supported: 6 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $3.49/month for 2 years
- $6.99/month for 1 year
- $11.95/month for 1 month
NordVPN is the most widely-used VPN in the world. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a polished app that delivers fast connections (more on this later) to a massive network of VPN servers.
It’s the most reliable at unblocking popular streaming services too – US Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, etc. This is because NordVPN hired a full-time technical team (that’s responsible for monitoring its servers’ connections with popular TV streaming services) and has been aggressively investing in its network of IP addresses in key locations.
Another interesting thing to note is that NordVPN is an industry leader in its development of Nordlynx technology. Nordlynx is built using the WireGuard, a new VPN tunneling protocol designed to outperform current standards (OpenVPN and IPSec). The benefits, according to NordVPN, are dramatically faster transfer speeds while connected to a VPN. My tests – New Zealand to London – confirm that Nordlynx is currently the fastest VPN on the market. However, the difference isn’t dramatic, a few Mbps is all.
SPECIAL OFFER – SAVE 70%!
(30-day money-back guarantee)
4. Ivacy
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ Dedicated streaming servers
- ✅ 5-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
Cons
- ❌ Only 5 devices
- ❌ Sometimes runs slow
- ❌ Occasionally block by streaming sites for several days
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for Ivacy and enjoy a 7-day trial with no strings attached
Number of servers: 1,000+ | Speed: >65% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 275 in 100 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $1.16/month for 5 years
- $3.50/month for 1 year
- $9.99/month for 1 month
If you’re looking for an excellent VPN, with an even better price tag, Ivacy ($1.16/month) is a great option.
This VPN has all the features you need to stream BBC iPlayer, in HD, from any country in the world. I’ve been testing the app recently on Mac, PC, Android, iOS and FireStick and the results have been impressive – unlocking BBC iPlayer, US Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, etc. with ease.
The Ivacy app is a little different in regards to its UX (user experience). Instead of just selecting a UK server, you need to select the specific BBC iPlayer server. Don’t worry, this isn’t a bad thing – by connecting to a dedicated BBC iPlayer server, it simply means that you’re connecting to an IP address that Ivacy knows works with BBC iPlayer.
For an extra $1.99/month (£1.74) you can add-on a dedicated IP. This will buy you sole access to an IP address in a country of your choice, meaning you won’t have to share your IP (and speeds) with any other use. I don’t recommend this though, using the regular Ivacy servers is enough 95 per cent of the time.
Special Offer – 7-day FREE trial!
(30-day money-back guarantee)
5. CyberGhost
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ 1-day free trial
- ✅ Reliable servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 7-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
Cons
- ❌ Expensive
- ❌ Average speed scores
SPECIAL OFFER – 1-DAY FREE TRIAL
Take advantage of CyberGhost’s 1-day FREE TRIAL!
Number of servers: 1,000+ | Speed: >65% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 275 in 100 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $2.75/month for 3 years
- $3.69/month for 2 years
- $5.99/month for 1 year
- $12.99/month for 1 month
CyberGhost is one of the more established VPNs on the market. It has a well-established, and well-tested global network of servers that perform well.
From my tests over the past several months, CyberGhost has no trouble at unblocking major streaming services – US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max etc. This VPN performed well at maintaining download speeds, well above 65 per cent of my regular (non VPN) ISP speed.
That said, there’s nothing really unique about the service. Which forces you to look at its price-point. And there’s nothing special here. Its short-term $12.99/month price tag puts is well above the industry average of $10.10/month. Similarly, its long-term $2.75/month for 3 years deal isn’t much of a “deal” either.
Oddly, CyberGhost’s most unique feature is its a 1-day, no obligations, free trial. This is an appealing offer to customers who are new to VPNs. However, it’s important to remember that most reputable VPNs will offer customers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so try not to be too seduced by the offer.
SPECIAL OFFER – 1-DAY FREE TRIAL
(30-day money-back guarantee)
