AirVPN vs Mullvad: Which Is More Anonymous With Monero

In April 2025, Mullvad published its fifth third-party security audit; three months later AirVPN released the source of its Eddie 2.x client under GPLv3. Both providers accept Monero, both promise no logs, and both have outlasted competitors that quietly added KYC after being acquired. Yet when you pay one of them with XMR routed through MoneroSwapper, the actual anonymity you walk away with is not identical. The difference comes down to how each company handles your account identifier, your payment trail, and the legal jurisdiction that would receive any future subpoena. This comparison breaks down every variable that matters for a Monero-paying user — not for the average shopper who clicks "subscribe with PayPal" — so you can pick the provider that fits your real threat model, whether you are a journalist, a torrent user in Italy, or simply someone who refuses to give a credit card to a VPN.

Why the Monero-VPN Combination Matters

Buying a VPN with XMR is not theatre. It is the only way to ensure that the VPN provider itself cannot link your subscription to a banking identity, a PayPal email, or a credit-card billing address. A no-logs policy protects you from log compulsion; an anonymous payment protects you from the much simpler attack of joining payment records to connection metadata at the gateway. Most providers fail this second test because they outsource payments to Stripe or Coinbase Commerce, which see your name even when the VPN does not.

AirVPN and Mullvad are the two services that have, for over a decade, handled the second test themselves. Neither outsources Monero payments. Neither requires an email address at signup. Both let you top up service in cash sent by mail. That is the baseline. The question for 2026 is which one offers the stronger guarantees on top of that baseline.

• Account model: the fundamental identifier each provider assigns you at signup and how recoverable it is.
• Payment flow: whether XMR is received directly on a provider-controlled node or via a third-party processor.
• Jurisdiction: what data-retention or assistance laws apply where the company is registered.
• Audit history: who has actually reviewed the source and infrastructure, and how recently.
• Network behaviour: port forwarding, multi-hop, residential blending, and how each affects de-anonymisation risk.

AirVPN: The Italian Veteran

AirVPN was founded in 2010 by a group of European activists associated with the hacktivist forum Air. It is registered in Perugia, Italy, and operated by Air Srl. Italy follows the EU's general data-protection framework but does not impose mandatory connection-log retention on VPN providers — a 2008 retention decree was struck down by the EU Court of Justice in 2014 and has not been replaced. AirVPN therefore operates without statutory log obligations.

Account identifier

At signup, AirVPN assigns you a username and password of your choosing. You can pick anything; there is no email confirmation required for paid plans (a throwaway email is requested but never verified). Your username is the lifelong identifier of your subscription. If you lose it, the account is gone — there is no recovery process tied to identity. This is a feature, not a bug: it means no recoverable identity exists in AirVPN's database.

Monero payment handling

AirVPN runs its own Monero node. When you select XMR at checkout, the system generates a unique subaddress for your order. The payment is detected on-chain, the subscription is activated, and no third party is involved. The receiving subaddress is rotated per order; even if a chain analyst were to identify one address, they would not see your subscription history. Combined with Monero's built-in ring signature, RingCT, and stealth address protections, the trail from MoneroSwapper to AirVPN's wallet is opaque on both sides.

Network features that affect anonymity

AirVPN offers port forwarding (rare among privacy-first VPNs in 2026), allowing seedboxes and self-hosted services. It supports OpenVPN and WireGuard, and its Eddie client lets you chain connections through up to four servers — though the company itself discourages this beyond two hops due to performance loss. The DNS is self-hosted, queries are never logged, and the company publishes real-time per-server load and user counts on its status page, allowing you to verify that the network exists and is not a Potemkin façade.

Mullvad: The Swedish Account-Number Model

Mullvad VPN AB was founded in 2009 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is owned by Amagicom AB. Sweden is part of the EU and historically had the IPRED directive on its books, but Mullvad has structured itself to hold as little data as possible — there is, in practice, almost nothing to hand over. In 2023 the Swedish police raided a Mullvad office looking for customer data and left empty-handed because there was none to find. That single event is the strongest real-world validation of any VPN's no-logs claim in the past five years.

Account identifier

Mullvad's flagship innovation is the 16-digit account number. There is no username, no password, no email — just a number generated client-side when you click "Generate account". The number is the credential. If you lose it, the account and any remaining time on it are gone. This model has been copied by IVPN and a handful of others, but Mullvad pioneered it and has the longest track record.

The implication for anonymity is significant: Mullvad's database, even if seized, contains only account numbers and the activation dates and remaining time attached to them. No name, no email, no IP, no payment processor reference linked to identity.

Monero payment handling

Mullvad accepts Monero directly via a self-hosted integration. When you choose XMR, a unique address is generated, the payment is detected on the company's own node, and time is added to the account number you provided. Like AirVPN, no third-party processor sits in between. Mullvad additionally accepts cash sent by mail with the account number written on a slip of paper — a method that has been continuously available since the company's founding.

Network features that affect anonymity

Mullvad does not offer port forwarding as of 2023 — the company removed it citing abuse and the difficulty of preventing some users from running illegal services that draw law-enforcement attention to the network as a whole. For torrent users this is a meaningful regression. On the positive side, Mullvad runs a custom WireGuard implementation called DAITA (Defence Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis) that pads and shapes traffic to defeat machine-learning fingerprinting — a feature AirVPN does not match. Mullvad also publishes its full client source under GPL and has commissioned audits from Cure53, Assured AB, and Radically Open Security.

Head-to-Head Comparison

The table below summarises the differences that actually matter when your goal is Monero-grade anonymity, not just "a VPN that takes crypto".

Dimension	AirVPN	Mullvad
Founded	2010, Perugia, Italy	2009, Gothenburg, Sweden
Account credential	Username + password (self-chosen)	16-digit account number, no email
Email required	Requested but unverified	Not requested at all
Monero payment	Direct, self-hosted node, rotating subaddress	Direct, self-hosted node, rotating subaddress
Cash by mail	No	Yes
Port forwarding	Yes, up to 20 ports	Removed in 2023
Multi-hop	Up to 4 hops via Eddie client	2-hop only via WireGuard multihop
Traffic obfuscation	SSL/SSH tunnels, Tor over VPN	WireGuard over Shadowsocks, DAITA
Independent audit	Code partially open; no full external audit	Multiple Cure53/Assured AB audits 2020-2025
Real-world raid test	None reported	Passed 2023 Swedish police raid
Price (1 year)	~€54	€60 flat (€5/month, no tiers)
Devices per subscription	5 simultaneous	5 simultaneous

On paper Mullvad wins on identifier minimisation, audit transparency, and the real-world raid; AirVPN wins on port forwarding, multi-hop depth, and granular pricing. Both are genuinely no-logs and both handle Monero on their own infrastructure, which already places them in a tier of two.

Buying Either VPN With Monero, Step by Step

The workflow below assumes you are starting with a different cryptocurrency or with no crypto at all, and that you want to end up with a paid VPN subscription that cannot be linked to your real identity. Use MoneroSwapper as the no-KYC source of XMR; both VPNs accept the resulting payment identically.

1. Install a Monero wallet on a clean device. Feather, Cake Wallet, or the official GUI are all acceptable. Generate a new mnemonic seed and store it offline on paper. Do not reuse a wallet that has touched a KYC exchange.
2. If you hold BTC, LTC, ETH, or another asset, visit MoneroSwapper and create a swap order from your source coin to XMR. Send your Monero subaddress as the destination. No account, no email, no ID upload is required.
3. Wait for the swap to complete. With Monero's ten-confirmation finality, this usually takes 20-30 minutes. The XMR arrives directly in your wallet; the swap provider has no further information about you.
4. Go to the VPN provider's signup page. For Mullvad, click "Generate account" and write down the 16-digit number. For AirVPN, choose a username and password; supply a throwaway address such as one from anonaddy.com if a field is required.
5. Select "Pay with Monero" and choose your subscription length. Copy the unique subaddress shown at checkout.
6. Send the exact requested amount from your Monero wallet. Use the wallet's payment-ID-free flow — the subaddress is the only identifier needed. Confirm the transaction.
7. Wait for ten confirmations. The provider's node detects the inbound transaction, and the subscription is credited to your account number or username automatically. You can now download the client, log in with only the account credential, and connect.

The strongest VPN-Monero workflow is not the one that uses the most exotic tools — it is the one that minimises the number of identifiers that exist in any database, anywhere, at the end of the process.

Real-World Threat Models Compared

Anonymity is always relative to a specific threat. Below we map common Monero-paying user profiles to which VPN behaves better.

The seedbox-running torrent user

You need a public port to accept incoming peer connections. Mullvad removed port forwarding in 2023; AirVPN still offers it. AirVPN wins this scenario decisively. The risk that your port forwarding draws attention is mitigated by Italy's lack of a data-retention mandate and by AirVPN's policy of resolving DMCA notices with a generic non-response.

The journalist communicating with a source

You need maximum guarantees that no log exists, that the company will not cooperate with hostile actors, and that traffic-analysis fingerprinting cannot link your VPN session to a known target. Mullvad's DAITA traffic-shaping, Swedish base, and post-raid track record give it the edge here. Multi-hop matters less than identifier minimisation.

The everyday user in a country with chilling speech laws

You want a VPN that you can pay for with cash if necessary and that the provider cannot inadvertently dox via a database breach. Mullvad's account number model is purpose-built for this. AirVPN is acceptable but requires you to be disciplined about the username you choose (never reuse a handle that exists elsewhere).

The privacy hobbyist running a self-hosted service

You want stable IPs, multi-hop chains, and the ability to layer Tor on top. AirVPN's Tor-over-VPN configuration and four-hop chains via Eddie are unmatched here. Mullvad keeps things simple and does not offer this depth.

Where Each One Stops Short

Neither provider is a magic shield, and pretending otherwise would be the same marketing fluff both companies have admirably avoided since 2010. Specifically:

• Endpoint compromise: a VPN cannot save you if your device is infected. Use a hardened OS, disable WebRTC in browsers, and treat any password manager that syncs across networks as a potential leak.
• Exit-node correlation: a global passive adversary that can see traffic at both ends of a tunnel does not care about logs. For protection against that level of threat you need Tor, not a commercial VPN — or both, layered.
• Account-time exhaustion: both VPNs will deactivate when your paid time runs out. If you forget to top up and the account number/username is leaked while inactive, an attacker may reactivate it under their control. Top up only when you intend to use the account.
• Wallet hygiene: the XMR you pay with should come from a wallet that has not touched a KYC exchange directly. Even though Monero's ring signature and stealth address protect on-chain privacy, an exchange that knows your identity and saw the outbound transaction is the weakest link.

FAQ

Is Mullvad really more anonymous than AirVPN by default?

In the narrow sense of "what identifying data exists in the provider's database", yes — Mullvad's account-number model stores strictly less than AirVPN's username+password model. In practice the gap shrinks for any user who picks a freshly invented username at AirVPN signup. The bigger differentiator is the 2023 Swedish raid, which is the only concrete proof of a no-logs claim either provider has been forced to demonstrate.

Can I use the same MoneroSwapper swap to pay both providers?

You can pay either provider from the same wallet. Whether you use the same outbound transaction depends on whether you bought enough XMR to cover both subscriptions plus fees. Because Monero's ring signature and stealth address conceal both sender and receiver on-chain, splitting a swap across two VPN payments does not weaken anonymity. The pricing is roughly €54-60 per year per provider, so plan accordingly.

Does AirVPN actually log anything despite the marketing?

AirVPN publishes real-time per-server statistics — current users, bandwidth, load — which proves that some aggregate observation exists, but the company has stated repeatedly that no per-user connection or activity logs are retained. There has been no court case forcing them to demonstrate this, which is the chief reason cautious users prefer Mullvad. Trust in AirVPN's claim rests on the company's 15-year reputation and the Italian legal context, not on independent verification.

Why did Mullvad remove port forwarding?

Mullvad stated in 2023 that the feature was being abused by a small fraction of users hosting illegal content, drawing law-enforcement attention to the broader user base. Rather than introduce monitoring to police this, the company removed the feature outright. The decision was philosophically consistent with their no-logs stance but cost them a segment of torrent and self-hosting users who migrated to AirVPN.

Is paying by cash really safer than paying with Monero?

It can be, depending on your local mail system. Cash by post to Mullvad eliminates the chain entirely — there is no transaction to subpoena, no exchange that knows you bought crypto, and no wallet history. The trade-off is that the envelope passes through postal infrastructure that has its own surveillance characteristics, and a refund or correction is essentially impossible. For most users, Monero from MoneroSwapper to the VPN's own node is the better balance of anonymity and convenience.

Which provider should a Tor user pick?

Both are usable behind Tor, but AirVPN explicitly documents and supports the Tor-over-VPN and VPN-over-Tor configurations. Mullvad publishes guidance for using their service via Tor as well but is less granular about the supported topologies. For a Tor-first workflow, AirVPN tends to be the smoother integration.

Conclusion

If you want the absolute minimum identifier surface in a provider's database, choose Mullvad — the account-number model and the 2023 raid evidence remain unmatched. If you need port forwarding, deeper multi-hop chains, or first-class Tor integration, choose AirVPN. Both are genuinely no-logs, both accept Monero on infrastructure they control themselves, and both will outlast the next wave of VPN consolidation precisely because they refuse the surveillance shortcuts their competitors have taken. Whichever you pick, fund it with XMR you obtained without KYC — MoneroSwapper is the cleanest way to convert any other coin into the Monero needed for the payment, and the entire flow from swap to active subscription leaves no usable trail. The choice between AirVPN and Mullvad is real, but the choice between paying anonymously and paying with a credit card is not — that one has only one defensible answer.