# Non-EU hosting
> Non-EU hosting places servers outside EU judicial-cooperation instruments such as the European Investigation Order and the Digital Services Act. Five Incognito VPS locations qualify: Iceland, Switzerland, Panama, Moldova and Russia. Romania, Bulgaria and the Netherlands are EU member states and are labelled as such.
**Source:** https://incognitovps.com/eu-alternative-hosting
**Updated:** 2026-07-14

## What EU membership actually means for a server

The European Investigation Order is the operative instrument. Between member states it is fast, standardised and close to automatic — an authority in one member state issues it and an authority in another executes it under a short deadline, with narrow grounds for refusal. That is the single biggest practical difference between an EU rack and a non-EU rack.

The Digital Services Act adds obligations around notice handling and, for larger platforms, transparency and risk assessment. It applies to providers established in the EU or targeting EU users.

## Where the perimeter falls on our map

Romania, Bulgaria and the Netherlands are EU member states. Iceland is EEA, which means single-market participation without membership of the EU judicial-cooperation framework — the EIO does not reach Reykjavík. Switzerland sits outside both, with foreign requests routed through mutual legal assistance and dual-criminality review. Panama, Moldova and Russia are outside entirely.

We say this explicitly on every location page rather than letting "offshore" do the work, because the difference between EEA and EU is exactly the kind of thing marketing copy usually blurs.


## Frequently asked questions

### Which of your locations are in the EU?

Romania, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Iceland is EEA but not EU, so EU judicial-cooperation instruments do not reach it. Switzerland, Panama, Moldova and Russia are outside both.

### Does GDPR apply to my server?

GDPR follows the data subjects, not the rack. If you process EU residents’ personal data you have obligations regardless of where the server sits. Non-EU hosting changes enforcement reach, not whether the regulation applies.

### Is Iceland in the EU?

No. Iceland is in the EEA, which grants single-market access without EU membership. It does not participate in EU judicial-cooperation instruments, so a European Investigation Order has no path there.

### Which non-EU location has the best latency to Europe?

Switzerland at 8 ms to Frankfurt, then Moldova at 42 ms and Iceland at 41 ms. All three are viable for European-facing production workloads.


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Incognito VPS — Offshore VPS, bare-metal and GPU servers in 16 locations, 8 of them chosen for their legal properties. No identity required, crypto-only payment, deployed in 55 seconds.
Operating since 2020. 16 locations, 8 of them privacy jurisdictions. AS204287.
Payment: BTC, XMR, ETH, USDT, USDC, LTC, TRX, SOL, BNB, DOGE, TON, DAI. No identity verification at any point.
Catalogue: https://incognitovps.com/pricing.md · API: https://incognitovps.com/openapi.json · Index: https://incognitovps.com/llms.txt