Spotify’s gaps are mostly its own: it doesn’t offer its service in mainland China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba or Syria, and it pulled out of Russia in 2022 over a new censorship law.
Every day we open Spotify from inside 24 countries, mostly over home broadband, and record
where it’s blocked, since when and how.
0 of 24tested countries with a confirmed block of Spotify
No confirmed blocks in the 24 countries with current results. 24 of 24 results confirmed in the last 48 hours.
Blocked means the networks we test there failed to open open.spotify.com, twice, while it opened elsewhere.
“Turned away by the site” means Spotify itself refused visitors from that country.
* First observed on this date: the block may be older. Older results are excluded from current totals.
Background
Where Spotify is restricted, and why
Where Spotify is missing, it is mostly Spotify’s own doing. Its list of the places where people can sign up, last updated in May 2026, leaves out mainland China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Belarus and Turkey are on it, as are Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Vietnam.
Spotify arrived in Russia and Belarus on 14 July 2020 and left Russia less than two years later. After the invasion of Ukraine it closed its office in Russia and couldn’t sell Premium there because payment providers had cut the country off; on 25 March 2022 it said it would suspend its free service too, because a new law threatening jail for “fake news” about the army put its staff and “possibly even our listeners” at risk.
Spotify doesn’t operate in mainland China, and whether its website opens there is less clear-cut. GreatFire, which tests sites from inside the mainland, listed www.spotify.com as blocked in September 2026 but rated spotify.com as a whole as mixed, with some of its addresses reachable. Either way, people in mainland China can’t sign up, because it isn’t on Spotify’s list.
Iranian tech media count Spotify among the “sanctioned platforms” that people in Iran have needed a VPN to use. In June 2026 the sites Zoomit and Digiato reported that spotify.com had suddenly become reachable from Iran without one, with users appearing to be in Azerbaijan. Experts they quoted said Iran’s networks were routing the traffic through intermediary servers; Digiato said it had nothing to do with Spotify changing its policy or sanctions being lifted.
Key dates
Iranian tech sites report spotify.com reachable from Iran without a VPN, through traffic routed via intermediary servers that appear to be in Azerbaijan.
Spotify says it will suspend its free service in Russia, citing a new law that threatens jail for “fake news” about the armed forces.
Spotify closes its office in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Spotify launches in Russia and Belarus.
Get past a block
Spotify blocked where you are?
A VPN connects you through a server in another country, so a local block on Spotify no longer applies. Where VPNs themselves are blocked, you need one that can disguise its traffic.
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History
Changes for Spotify
No confirmed changes since monitoring began on 29 Sep 2026. When a block appears or lifts, and a re-check on several machines agrees, it shows up here.
Method
How we test
Test machines on the two biggest home-internet providers in most countries open the homepage every day.
A failure counts only when it happens twice on the same network, while the site opens from other countries.
A change is published only after re-checks a few hours later and again the next day, on several machines per provider, confirm it. It’s dated from the first sighting.
Test machines caught getting around blocks, through a VPN or a filter-dodging tool, are set aside.
We test websites, mostly over home broadband. Apps, calls and mobile networks can behave differently.
Spotify’s own list of the places where you can sign up leaves out mainland China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Myanmar and Afghanistan, among others. That list is Spotify’s decision: in Russia, for example, it shut its service down itself in 2022, citing a new censorship law.
Why Did Spotify Leave Russia?
Spotify said in March 2022 that a new law threatening jail for spreading “fake news” about Russia’s armed forces put its staff and “possibly even our listeners” at risk. It had already closed its office in Russia and couldn’t sell Premium there because payment providers had cut the country off.
Is Spotify Available in China?
Not in mainland China, which isn’t on Spotify’s list of places where you can sign up; Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are. GreatFire’s tests from inside the mainland found www.spotify.com blocked in September 2026, though it rated spotify.com overall as mixed, with some of its addresses reachable.
