Low-Latency VPN: How to Keep Video Calls and Games Smooth
Bandwidth is what speed tests show. Latency is what you feel on a call. Here's where a VPN adds delay, how much is normal, and how to keep it close to zero.
On this page
A low-latency VPN adds only a few milliseconds of ping, because its server is close to you and its protocol adds little work. A VPN adds latency in three places. The first is the detour: your traffic now goes via the VPN server. The second is the handshakes, a little extra time when each new connection opens. The third is the protocol itself, which costs microseconds. Distance dominates. Light in fibre covers about 100 km per millisecond of round trip, so a server in your own city adds almost nothing, and one on another continent adds 100 ms or more. Pick the nearest server and a modern protocol, and calls and games stay smooth.
Key takeaways
- Distance is most of the delay. ITU-T G.114 puts light in optical fibre at 5 µs per km one way: about 1 ms of round trip per 100 km of cable.
- Video calls need modest numbers. Zoom recommends latency of 150 ms or less, jitter of 40 ms or less, and packet loss of 2% or less. Microsoft Teams targets under 100 ms round trip, jitter under 30 ms and loss under 1%.
- Games are pickier. Research on online games puts the sensitivity threshold at about 100 ms for shooters and racing games, 500 ms for sports and RPGs, and 1,000 ms for strategy.
- New connections pay a one-time cost. A TCP-based VPN adds a handshake with the server. In our tests the first byte of a new connection arrived about 90 ms later than direct, and reused connections paid nothing extra.
- Corporate VPNs are the usual culprit for laggy calls, because they route everything through a far-off office. A nearby consumer VPN server is a different story.
Where does a VPN add latency?
| Source | Typical cost | When you pay it | What you can do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detour via the server | ~1 ms per 100 km of extra fibre path (round trip) | Every packet | Use the closest server, or one on the way to your destination |
| Handshake with the server | One extra round trip to the server, plus any protocol checks | Once per new connection | Keep connections open; pick a near server |
| Encryption and processing | Microseconds | Every packet | Nothing needed on modern devices |
| Queueing on congested Wi-Fi | Tens to hundreds of ms | Under load | Not caused by the VPN; fix the Wi-Fi or use cable |
1. The detour
Without a VPN, your traffic goes from you to the website. With one, it goes from you to the VPN server, then to the website. If the server is in your city, the detour is a few kilometres and costs about nothing. If it's across an ocean, every packet takes the long way.
Physics sets the floor. Light in fibre travels at about two-thirds of its speed in a vacuum: roughly 200,000 km per second, or 5 µs per km one way. Real cables don't follow straight lines, so actual delays are higher than these minimums:
| Extra fibre distance | Minimum added round trip |
|---|---|
| 100 km (same metro area) | ~1 ms |
| 1,000 km (neighbouring country) | ~10 ms |
| 5,000 km (across a continent) | ~50 ms |
| 10,000 km (across an ocean) | ~100 ms |
That's why picking the nearest server matters more than anything else on this page.
2. The handshakes
Every new connection, such as a page load, an API call or a game lobby, starts with handshakes. Through a TCP-based VPN, your device first connects to the VPN server, then the server connects onward. If the server is near you, that extra step takes a few milliseconds. If it's far, each new connection pays the full distance once more.
What we measured with VLESS + REALITY (November 2026): from a Mac on home Wi-Fi, a new connection's first byte arrived about 90 ms later than direct, because of the extra TCP and TLS handshake. Once connected, requests ran at about 38 ms each. On the server side, REALITY's check against the real website it borrows added 10–25 ms per new connection, so we choose each server's borrowed site by measured handshake speed. Open connections don't pay any of this again.
3. The protocol
Encryption on a modern phone or laptop costs microseconds per packet. WireGuard and VLESS + REALITY with XTLS Vision add almost nothing here. Older OpenVPN setups add more, mostly from running in user space. See the fastest VPN protocols compared.
How much latency do video calls and games need?
| Use | Official or research guidance | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom | Latency ≤ 150 ms, jitter ≤ 40 ms, packet loss ≤ 2% | Zoom support |
| Microsoft Teams | < 100 ms round trip (< 50 ms one way), jitter < 30 ms, loss < 1% | Microsoft Learn |
| Google Meet | Best quality under 100 ms round trip; reduced at 300 ms or more | Google Workspace Admin Help |
| Voice in general | Under 150 ms one way feels "essentially transparent" | ITU-T G.114 |
| Shooters and racing games | Sensitive above ~100 ms | Claypool & Claypool, CACM 2006 |
| Sports games and RPGs | Sensitive above ~500 ms | Claypool & Claypool, CACM 2006 |
A nearby VPN server fits comfortably inside these budgets. A server on another continent can use up most of a Teams budget before your call even starts.
"Microsoft says not to use a VPN for Teams." Is that right?
Microsoft and Google both recommend keeping Teams and Meet media off VPNs. They're mostly talking about corporate VPNs, which send all traffic to a company data centre, often far away, before it reaches Microsoft or Google. Microsoft also notes that some VPNs don't carry UDP well and add latency and jitter.
A consumer VPN with a server in your city is a different setup: the detour is tiny. (More on choosing one in what remote workers need from a VPN.) Two cases still deserve care:
- If your company tells you to use split tunnelling for calls, do it. Most VPN apps let you exclude an app or a domain from the tunnel. Happ, for example, supports routing rules.
- On very lossy Wi-Fi, TCP-based tunnels can add jitter, because a lost packet is re-sent before later ones are delivered. If calls stutter only with the VPN on, move closer to the router, use cable, or exclude the call app.
Can a VPN lower your ping?
Sometimes, but don't count on it. A VPN can lower ping when your internet provider's route to a server is poor (congested, or detouring through another city) and the VPN server's network has a better path. That's common for some games and some international routes. Most of the time a VPN adds a little latency, and the goal is to keep that addition close to zero.
How to test your VPN's latency
- Measure without the VPN. Run a test that shows latency and jitter, such as
speed.cloudflare.com, and note the idle and loaded latency. - Connect to the nearest server and run the same test, back to back. Repeat each two or three times, alternating.
- Compare like with like: idle latency, loaded latency (during the download test) and jitter.
- Test a real call or game, because that's what you'll feel. A short Zoom test meeting shows latency, jitter and loss in its statistics panel.
If latency jumps far more than distance explains, see why your VPN is slow for the other usual causes.
How SleekDart keeps latency low
- The lowest-delay city, picked automatically. When the app opens, it pings every SleekDart city through the tunnel and connects to the one with the lowest delay. Live cities: Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, London and Frankfurt.
- A lean protocol. VLESS + REALITY + XTLS Vision adds almost nothing per packet and doesn't encrypt HTTPS traffic twice.
- Borrowed sites chosen by handshake speed, measured from each server, to keep the one-time cost of a new connection down.
- Tuned servers: BBR congestion control, which keeps throughput steady when Wi-Fi drops random packets.
Frequently asked questions
Does a VPN increase ping?
Usually a little. Your traffic takes a detour via the VPN server, and new connections need an extra handshake. With a server in your own city the increase is a few milliseconds. With a server on another continent it can be 100 ms or more, because light in fibre covers only about 100 km per millisecond of round trip.
What is a good ping for video calls?
Zoom recommends latency of 150 ms or less, jitter of 40 ms or less and packet loss of 2% or less. Microsoft Teams targets under 100 ms round trip, with jitter under 30 ms and loss under 1%. A VPN server near you uses only a small part of those budgets.
Is a VPN good for gaming?
It can be, if the server is close and the protocol is modern. Shooters and racing games are sensitive above about 100 ms, so avoid distant servers. A VPN can occasionally lower ping when your provider's route to the game server is poor, but usually it adds a few milliseconds.
Why are my Zoom or Teams calls choppy on a VPN?
The most common reason is a distant server, often a corporate VPN routing calls via a far-off office. Others are lossy Wi-Fi, which hurts TCP-based tunnels most, and a busy server. Connect to your nearest server, use cable or sit closer to the router, or exclude the call app from the tunnel if your app supports it.
Which VPN protocol has the lowest latency?
WireGuard and VLESS + REALITY with XTLS Vision both add very little processing. On networks that block UDP, VLESS + REALITY is the low-latency option that still connects. In every case, the server's distance from you matters far more than the protocol.
Sources
- ITU-T G.114: One-way transmission time
- Zoom: in-meeting statistics (latency, jitter, packet loss)
- Microsoft Learn: Teams network requirements and prepare your network for Teams
- Google Workspace: troubleshoot Meet network issues
- Claypool & Claypool, "Latency and Player Actions in Online Games", CACM 2006 (technical report)
- Cardwell et al., "BBR: Congestion-Based Congestion Control", ACM Queue 2016
- SleekDart latency measurements, 10–12 November 2026