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Who owns your VPN? Owners, company seats, and the Five Eyes
Why the company behind a VPN matters, which providers in this archive share an owner, where they are based, and what the Five, Nine, and Fourteen Eyes are.
Key points
- With a VPN, the provider can see what your internet provider saw before. So it matters who the provider is.
- Several well-known VPN brands belong to the same company. In this archive, Kape Technologies lists ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access among its brands.
- The law of the company seat decides what data authorities can request. This archive records the seat of 8 providers; 2 are outside the Five, Nine, and Fourteen Eyes countries.
Brand, company, owner
Three names can stand behind one VPN:
| Level | Example from this archive | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | Private Internet Access | the website and app |
| Company that runs it | PIA Private Internet Access, Inc. | the terms of service |
| Owner | Kape Technologies | the owner’s own website |
Each provider page on this site shows these facts with a link to the page where they were checked. Missing facts are marked as “not recorded”, never as “none”.
Brands that share an owner
Some groups own several VPN brands. Two brands may look like a choice between competitors when they belong to the same company. In this archive:
- Kape Technologies lists ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access, and CyberGhost among its brands.
- Surfshark states that it merged with Nord Security under one holding company in 2022 and that both operate independently.
Shared owners can also mean shared infrastructure. The guide The networks behind VPN servers shows that many providers rent servers from the same few networks.
Company seat and the “Eyes” alliances
The Five Eyes are five countries whose intelligence services share information: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Nine and Fourteen Eyes add more countries. A company in one of these countries is not automatically worse, but its government can request data under local law.
- Five Eyes: 540 (32 %)
- Nine Eyes, additional members: 88 (5 %)
- Fourteen Eyes, additional members: 132 (8 %)
- none of the three: 913 (55 %)
About 32 % of all listed server locations are in Five Eyes countries. Note that this counts where servers are listed, not where the companies are based.
 AirVPN | 44 % | |
|---|---|---|
 ExpressVPN | 40 % | |
 Windscribe | 40 % | |
 AzireVPN | 39 % | |
 Private Internet Access | 38 % | |
 IVPN | 37 % | |
 Mullvad | 37 % | |
 OVPN | 34 % | |
 NordVPN | 33 % | |
 Surfshark | 27 % | |
 Proton VPN | 19 % | |
 CyberGhost | 18 % | |
 hide.me | 11 % |
What this does not tell you
- Whether a provider keeps logs. That is a promise, sometimes checked by an audit; see Audits and no-logs claims.
- Whether an owner treats its brands differently. This site shows facts, not ratings.
Filter by seat: the VPN finder has the option “based outside the Five, Nine, and Fourteen Eyes countries”. Providers whose seat is not recorded stay in the list with a note.
Next step
Read What VPN websites track, or see the analysis of surveillance alliances.
The figures in this guide come from the archive and change with every data update. As of October 17, 2026.