Access Claude AI from anywhere

Anthropic restricts Claude access based on region. Some countries are blocked by government censorship, while others are excluded by Anthropic's own policies around sanctions and national security.¹

Unlike ChatGPT, Claude checks your IP address every time you use it, not just at login. If you're connecting from a restricted region, you'll be blocked even if you signed up elsewhere.²

Countries where Claude is blocked or unavailable:

• China³
• Russia
• Iran
• North Korea
• Hong Kong and Macau³
• Syria, Cuba, and other sanctioned regions
• Several African and other nations (not on Anthropic's supported list)⁴

In 2025, Anthropic also expanded restrictions to block companies controlled by entities in unsupported regions, even if those companies operate in other countries.⁵

Workplace and school networks often block AI tools as well. Lantern works in these situations too.

Why Claude is harder to access than other AI tools

Claude's real-time IP checking makes it stricter than ChatGPT, where you only need a supported IP at login. With Claude, your connection needs to appear to come from a supported country for the entire session.²

This means you need a VPN that stays connected reliably and doesn't leak your real IP. Most free or basic VPNs drop connections intermittently or get detected by IP reputation checks.

Lantern's protocols are designed to maintain stable, long-duration connections even on heavily filtered networks. Lantern automatically switches between protocols if one gets disrupted, so your session doesn't break. This is the same approach that kept Lantern running during Iran's 2022 internet shutdowns, when most VPNs were blocked within hours.

What you can do with Claude + Lantern

• Use Claude for research, writing, coding, and analysis from anywhere
• Access claude.ai and the Claude app on any device (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Use the Anthropic API for development in regions where it's otherwise restricted
• Keep your connection private with Lantern's no-logs policy and encrypted protocols

Free to start. Pro for more.

Lantern's free plan includes daily data, enough to try Claude and see that it works. Lantern Pro gives you unlimited data, access on up to 5 devices, and server location selection.

Every Pro subscription helps fund free access for people in censored regions.

Footnotes

1. Anthropic publishes a list of supported countries for both the API and claude.ai. Countries not on the list can't create accounts or access services. See Anthropic's supported countries. ↩

2. Multiple user reports and third-party guides confirm that Claude validates IP location on each request, not just at login. Users connecting through VPNs report mid-session blocks when connections drop and their real IP is exposed. Anthropic's risk control system also checks for data center IPs, shared VPN IPs, and DNS/WebRTC leaks. Anthropic has not published official documentation confirming per-request IP checking, but the behavior is widely reported and consistent. ↩ ↩

3. Anthropic cut off access to China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Neither mainland China, Hong Kong, nor Macau appear on Anthropic's supported countries list. China's government also blocks many foreign AI services through the Great Firewall. ↩ ↩

4. Anthropic's supported list covers most of Africa but excludes several countries, including the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Some of these are absent due to sanctions or regulatory factors rather than limited Anthropic support specifically. The list changes as Anthropic expands coverage. ↩

5. In September 2025, Anthropic updated its terms of service to prohibit use by entities more than 50% owned by companies headquartered in unsupported regions, specifically citing concerns about companies controlled by adversarial nations like China operating through subsidiaries. See Anthropic's announcement. ↩