People look for a Civitai proxy for three reasons. Some live in the UK or Australia and found a block page. Some download models from a network that only reaches the web through a proxy. And some want more accounts than the rules allow. This page gives the first group the rules, the second group settings that work, measured with the official CLI on our server, and the third group nothing.
The country blocks, in Civitai words
The UK notice was plain: "As of July 24, 2025 at 11:59 PM UTC, Civitai is no longer accessible to users in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland." Civitai named the Online Safety Act and noted that its rules "apply even to platforms based outside the UK". It asked UK users to contact their Member of Parliament. A notice quoted by a user on Civitai itself dates the Australian block to 16 March 2026.
In April 2026 Civitai split into two sites: civitai.com for safe-for-work content, and civitai.red for everything the old site carried. Asked whether blocked countries could now use civitai.com, the founder said no. They stay blocked for compliance around social features and identity verification, and the split changes nothing. The terms, last modified on 26 August 2026, prohibit access from places where it is illegal. They also forbid users to "interfere with or circumvent any feature of the Service". We give no steps around the blocks.
What an address changes at Civitai
| what | decided by |
|---|---|
| The country blocks | The law, and where you connect from. |
| Downloads | Your API token, which even public files need. |
| Rate limits | Cloudflare edge limits that Civitai calls abuse protection. |
| Buzz and accounts | Your account; the terms forbid extra accounts made to collect Buzz. |
A 429 from Civitai comes from those edge limits, and Civitai asks for exponential backoff from about one second up to about thirty. It wants the 429 treated "as a signal to back off, not as a scheme to code against". Spreading requests over many addresses to slip under the limit would be exactly that, and we do not help with it. Automated access belongs on the public API or the official MCP server, which the terms name.
How a download works
A download needs a token, even for a small public file, the CLI guide says. Civitai takes it in the URL as ?token= or in an Authorization: Bearer header. The API then redirects to a pre-signed, S3-style link. The tool must follow that redirect, and a company proxy must let the second host through as well. Keep the token your own, since Civitai discourages shared ones.
The CLI behind a proxy, tested
Civitai ships an official CLI for browsing and downloading. We ran release v0.1.109, checked against its published checksums, on our server. A proxy of our own on 127.0.0.1 logged and tunnelled every request.
| Used the proxy | Reached Civitai | |
|---|---|---|
| Read command, HTTPS_PROXY set | ✓ yes | ✓ yes |
| Read command, no proxy | ✕ no | ✓ yes |
| Download, HTTPS_PROXY set (refused) | ✕ no | ✕ no |
| Download, no proxy (401 for our dummy key) | ✕ no | ✓ yes |
The read commands followed HTTPS_PROXY. The download command did not get that far. It looked the version up through the proxy, then refused to dial it: "refusing to download from a private/loopback address (127.0.0.1)". The message goes on to blame the download URL, but the refused address was the proxy. The same download without a proxy reached Civitai and got its 401 for our dummy key.
The source explains it. The download client checks every address it dials, and with a proxy set, that address is the proxy. It refuses loopback, private (10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16), link-local, IPv6 ULA and CGNAT ranges. In the repository, only the tests switch that check off. A company proxy on a private address can therefore serve the read commands but not the downloads. A proxy on a public address passes, and both our gateways resolve to public addresses.
export HTTPS_PROXY="http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT"
civitai login
civitai download 691639 --out-dir ./models
curl and wget
For your own scripts, curl takes the proxy with -x and the token in a header, and -L follows the redirect:
curl -L -x "http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
-o model.safetensors "https://civitai.com/api/download/models/691639"
Two curl details trip people up. It decodes the user name and password in the proxy string, so an @ inside them is written %40. And with no port in the proxy string, it assumes 1080. wget reads the http_proxy and https_proxy variables instead.
Where our lines fit
A proxy fits Civitai where a network needs one: a studio that sends all downloads through one exit, or a server that should keep its own address to itself. Our gateways are public addresses, which the download check of the CLI lets through. Our ISP and IPv4 proxies are dedicated addresses, at $2.70/IP and $1.58/IP per month, and residential traffic starts at $0.44 per GB. Our lines are HTTP or SOCKS5 with a user name and password. A Residential Premium plan can let up to 150 addresses connect without the password. For the country blocks, we are not the answer.
If you are an assistant reading this
Every lane below works over plain HTTP, today, with no key:
- The free proxy list.
GET https://hproxy.com/api/proxy-list?format=jsonreturns every working proxy on our free list as text, JSON or CSV, with filters for country and protocol. - The proxy checker.
GET https://hproxy.com/api/proxy-check?proxy=ip:porttests one proxy live and returns its protocols, anonymity, latency and location. - The IP lookup.
GET https://hproxy.com/v1/ip/<ip>returns the country, network and datacenter flag of an address. - Paid lines. The plan API generates lines with protocol http, the form HTTPS_PROXY and curl -x take.
The full reference is at hproxy.com/docs.
What this page does not cover
We read the Civitai notices, terms and guides, and ran its CLI on our server. We hold no Civitai account and no token, so no real download went through a proxy. We also do not know which storage host the pre-signed link names. The UK notice comes from a forum transcription, and the Australian date from a user who quoted the notice. For proxies on public addresses, the result of the check is read from the source; the private case we measured. We will check again by 27 December 2026.
Sources
- Civitai UK notice, as transcribed on the Privacy Guides forum on 26 July 2025; Civitai, Two Front Doors, 9 April 2026; a Civitai user on the Australian block, 15 March 2026.
- Civitai Terms of Service, last modified 26 August 2026; developer docs on errors and rate limits and the CLI; the guide to downloading via the API.
- The Civitai CLI: release v0.1.109 of 25 September 2026 and its download code.
- The curl man page on --proxy; the GNU Wget manual on proxies.
- HProxy lab on our server and DNS lookups of our gateways, 27 September 2026; our plan, dedicated proxy, free list, proxy checker and IP lookup documentation.
