Switched Off: Internet Shutdowns Worldwide in 2025

By the Connect Media Editorial Team · Published 15 October 2026 · Methodology · Sources

Somewhere in the world in 2025, on almost every day of the year, a government pulled the plug. It happened on the morning of an election, during exams, in the middle of a war, and sometimes for no stated reason at all. Phones still rang, but WhatsApp went quiet, banking apps froze and shops that take payment online stopped trading. This report pulls together the two most-cited trackers of internet shutdowns, explains why the numbers differ, and asks what a business that depends on connectivity can actually do when the screen goes blank.

Key findings

1. A record year, by any count

Access Now, a digital-rights group that coordinates the #KeepItOn coalition of more than 300 organisations, counted at least 313 shutdowns in 52 countries in 2025, up from 304 in 2024 and the highest total since it began counting in 2016 [1]. Myanmar had the most for the second year running, with at least 95. Seven countries appeared on the list for the first time: Albania, Angola, Cambodia, Lithuania, Panama, Papua New Guinea and the United States.

Top10VPN, a research site that measures the economic damage, uses a narrower definition: it counts only major national or regional outages and social-media blocks. It still logged 212 major disruptions in 28 countries, the highest in a single year, lasting a combined 120,095 hours [2]. The trackers do not disagree; they measure different things. Access Now counts every incident, including a one-day block of a single app in one province. Top10VPN counts fewer but larger events and puts a dollar figure on each.

One region dominates. The Asia-Pacific accounted for 195 shutdowns in 11 countries, roughly half of the world total, driven by Myanmar, India’s regional orders and Pakistan [3]. The Middle East and North Africa followed with 52 in 15 countries, led by Iran with 11. Africa recorded 30 shutdowns across 15 countries: fewer incidents, but spread across more states and often national in scale [4].

2. The bill: US$19.7 billion

Top10VPN estimates the cost of 2025’s major shutdowns at US$19.7 billion, more than double 2024’s US$7.69 billion though below the 2022 peak of US$24.61 billion, when Russia’s restrictions after its invasion of Ukraine pushed the total up [2]. The model multiplies hours of disruption by each country’s digital economy and by the share of the population online. Russia alone accounted for an estimated US$11.9 billion in 2025, followed by Venezuela (US$1.91 billion) and Myanmar (US$1.89 billion).

Source: Top10VPN, The Cost of Internet Shutdowns and Thomson Reuters Foundation reporting [2][5].

3. Why governments do it

For years the triggers were predictable: protests, elections and school exams. Exams still matter (Iraq, Syria and Algeria have all cut networks to stop cheating), but 2025 brought two shifts.

The first is war. Access Now linked 125 shutdowns in 14 countries to conflict, about 40% of the total, and found that at least 70 coincided with serious human-rights abuses in 21 countries [1]. When the network goes dark, so does the evidence.

The second is pre-emption. Top10VPN noted that governments “increasingly turned to pre-emptive disruptions, citing security concerns even in the absence of protests, elections, exams or other traditional triggers” [2]. Russian regions that switch off mobile data whenever drones are expected are the clearest example. And as people turned to satellite services to get around blocks, authorities followed: satellite internet was disrupted 14 times in seven countries, up from four the year before.

4. East Africa: closer to home than it looks

Kenya’s neighbourhood shows how quickly a shutdown can arrive. On 29 October 2025, Tanzania’s general election day, NetBlocks recorded national traffic falling to nearly 90% below normal from about 00:30, just as polls opened [6]. Mobile and fixed lines were both hit. Service returned on 3 November, but blocks on social media and messaging apps continued afterwards. Cross-border traders in Namanga and Holili, Kenyan firms with Tanzanian customers, and families on both sides of the border were cut off for five days.

Kenya itself has a disputed episode. On 25 June 2024, during the #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests, NetBlocks reported a major drop in connectivity across Kenya’s networks, a day after the Communications Authority had said it had “no intention of interrupting internet traffic” [7]. Safaricom blamed two undersea cable outages; NetBlocks said the cause remained unexplained. In January 2026, Uganda again went dark around its election. Our report on political SMS covers what Kenya’s 2027 election rules mean for campaign messaging.

5. A continuity plan for when the internet stops

No business can stop a government order. It can decide in advance how it will keep talking to customers and staff.

• Keep phone numbers, not just app handles. A WhatsApp-only customer list is worthless during a data blackout. Store verified mobile numbers with consent.
• Have an SMS fallback ready. Pre-approve a sender ID and a few message templates (“Our app is down; pay by M-Pesa till…”, “Branch open as normal”) so you can send in minutes.
• Use USSD for transactions. USSD menus such as *334# run over the signalling network and kept many mobile-money payments moving in past disruptions.
• Diversify routes. If you run servers or APIs, check that your hosting and messaging providers have more than one upstream path. See our undersea cables report.
• Watch the calendar. Elections, exam seasons and protest anniversaries are the high-risk dates. Plan staffing and stock around them.
• Do not rely on VPNs for customer-facing services. They help individuals, but are often blocked or throttled, and may break local laws.

Methodology

We compared the 2025 datasets of Access Now’s #KeepItOn coalition (which counts every deliberate disruption, including regional and app-specific ones) and Top10VPN (which counts major national or regional disruptions and estimates their cost using the NetBlocks/Internet Society Cost of Shutdown Tool approach). Regional figures come from Access Now’s regional releases. Event details for Tanzania and Kenya come from NetBlocks measurements as reported by news outlets. The two trackers use different definitions and should not be added together. Some cost figures for 2026 events are estimates published before the event ended.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Access Now, “Rising and resisting in the darkness: internet shutdowns in 2025”, March 2026. accessnow.org
2. Top10VPN, “The Cost of Internet Shutdowns in 2025”. top10vpn.com
3. Access Now, “One region, half the world’s shutdowns: Asia Pacific in 2025”. accessnow.org
4. Access Now, “Resilience and resistance: internet shutdowns in Africa in 2025”. accessnow.org
5. Thomson Reuters Foundation / Context, “From Iran to Uganda, internet shutdowns batter economies”. context.news
6. Internet Society Pulse, “Tanzania internet disrupted on election day”. pulse.internetsociety.org
7. Internet Without Borders, “Kenya: internet disruptions and anti-government protests”. internetwithoutborders.org