Most people who reach this page search for "valorant proxies". Many hope a proxy will lower their ping, move them to another region or get them past a ban. This page checks each hope against the rules Riot publishes. The short answer: Riot asks players to turn proxies and VPNs off. It bans hardware rather than addresses, and it changes an account region only through its own tool.
What a proxy changes, and what it does not
| question | what decides it | does a proxy change it? |
|---|---|---|
| the address that websites see | your connection | yes |
| a penalty on your account | your record on that account | no |
| a hardware ID ban | the computer | no |
| your shard and payment options | your Region of Residence | no, Riot asks where you live |
| your ping | the route to the Riot network | it adds one more stop |
| access to the Riot API | a production key | no |
The rest of the page gives the Riot source for each row.
What Riot says about proxies and VPNs
The VALORANT network troubleshooting guide asks one question on the subject: "Are you using a proxy or VPN? If so, try your connection without one. These can cause issues with your connection and should only be used if 100% necessary".
The Riot terms, last modified on 1 December 2024, do not name proxies or VPNs. They list behavior that warrants disciplinary measures, and two items on that list matter here. One is "circumventing any technological measure implemented by Riot or any third party to protect or control access to the Riot Services". The other is "unauthorized third party programs that intercept, emulate, or redirect any communication relating to the Riot Services".
So the question is less about the proxy than about the job. Reaching something Riot blocks, or forcing the game through a proxy with a redirect tool, runs into those two lines.
How VALORANT bans work
Riot publishes two kinds of penalty. The first sits on the account. It grows with a record of AFK, queue dodging, boosting or friendly fire.
| penalty | what it does | how long |
|---|---|---|
| Warning | tells you a system caught you | no duration |
| XP denial | no XP from that match | 1 match |
| Rank Rating deduction | 6 to 24 RR lost for AFK or dodging in Competitive | 1 match |
| Teamplay restriction | only solo deathmatch and custom games | 3 to 365 days |
| VALORANT game ban | no VALORANT at all | 7 days to permanent |
| Hardware ID ban | no Riot game on that computer, error VAN 152 | the ban period |
Riot says game bans are reserved for repeat offenders who ignored earlier warnings and penalties.
The second kind is the hardware ID ban, which Riot calls more serious than an account ban. It follows extreme abuse across banned accounts, verifiable threats, or a flag for third-party tools used for scripting or cheating. In the words of the support article, Riot has "banned the physical components of that computer rather than just banning an account".
Two details settle the question of an IP ban. Reinstalling the game or deleting the account does not remove a hardware ID ban. And another account that logs in on that computer is banned for a set period, "as the system assumes that the account is attempting to circumvent the original ban".
Neither article describes a ban on an IP address. A new address changes nothing about a hardware ban, and trying one on a banned machine costs the next account too.
Your account region and the store
Every Riot account carries a Region of Residence. The support page defines it as "the geographical area you live in". It "decides which shards you play on, which payment options you have available to you, and who you can play with".
The store follows the account as well. In 2024 Riot corrected accounts in Vietnam whose location "was incorrectly recorded in our systems". After the fix, those players got "location-specific currencies" and local payment methods, and they kept their shard. The terms add that Game Currency prices may vary with where a player buys.
If your region is wrong, the region of residence page has a tool to correct it, behind your login. Riot asks for the area you live in, not the address you connect from.
Ping: why a proxy does not lower it
Riot runs its own network for the game. The VALORANT tech leads wrote in 2020: "We built Riot Direct, our own internet backbone, to minimize network routing delays and processing time across the internet". Their goal was "35ms ping to 70% of our player base", on servers that run at 128 ticks a second.
Game traffic is real-time traffic, and a Riot network engineer notes that "most games transmit traffic over UDP because of the increased efficiency and speed". The same post explains how a longer route through more routers adds delay and drops more packets.
A proxy adds one more stop to that route. It can only help when your own provider routes badly, which is the problem Riot Direct exists to fix. None of the proxy pages we read for this article showed a ping measurement, and we have not measured one either. The Riot guide starts elsewhere: a wired connection, then a test without a proxy or VPN.
One more point, since several proxy sellers stress UDP support: we do not route a match through a proxy, UDP or not. It adds a stop to the path, and forcing the game into a proxy takes the kind of redirect tool the terms name.
The Riot Client, the game and redirect tools
Some people search for a proxy setting in the Riot Client. The Riot support pages we read describe none. The only mention of proxies is the advice to try without one.
Tools that force the client or the game through a proxy are third-party programs that redirect communication. The terms list those among the behavior Riot penalizes, so this page shows no setup for them.
For developers: the VALORANT API
Stats sites and bots get VALORANT data from the Riot API, and the rules there are strict. Riot says: "Personal Key Applications are currently not supported". Every VALORANT app needs a production key. Players opt in through Riot Sign On, which "is only available to developers with Production Level API Keys".
Riot also lists uses it will not approve:
- scouting, which Riot describes as "seeing an opponents stats before a match starts".
- apps that are not public and are designed for personal use only.
- online store tracking, because "the technology for this does not currently exist in the API".
- in-game overlays that give a real-time advantage.
The API asks for a key, not an address. We sent one request without a key from our server on 27 September 2026. It answered HTTP 401 with "Cannot process request apikey or authorization header is empty". Each production key also serves one product only. A proxy has no part in any of this.
If you use proxies for other work
Nothing on this page sets up a proxy for VALORANT, because Riot asks players to turn them off. For other work, where a proxy is allowed, start with what a residential proxy is and whether free proxies are safe. Our free proxy list and proxy checker cost nothing, and we explain how to check if a proxy is working. Paid residential traffic on our network starts at $0.44/GB.
The limits of this page
We did not log in to a Riot account, send game traffic through a proxy, or measure ping through one. Riot does not publish how it detects proxy or VPN traffic, so this page does not guess. Most of the support articles are living pages dated May and June 2026. This page is due for a check by 27 December 2026.
Sources
We read every source below on 27 September 2026.
- Riot Games Support, Understanding Hardware ID (HWID) Bans.
- VALORANT Support, Penalties and Bans FAQ and Troubleshooting Your Network Connection.
- Riot Games Support, Changing Your Region of Residence and Player Location Update for Vietnam.
- Riot Games, Terms of Service, last modified 1 December 2024.
- Riot Games Technology, the post on the VALORANT netcode, 28 July 2020, and Fixing the Internet for Real Time Applications, Part I, 6 November 2015.
- Riot Developer Portal, the VALORANT documentation and the General Policies.
- Our request to the Riot API from our own server, 27 September 2026.
More pages in this series: proxies for League of Legends, proxies for Apex Legends, proxies for Brawl Stars and free proxies for Valorant.
