Why LGBTQ dating apps are banned or blocked in some countries

LGBTQ dating apps are blocked in some countries because the law there punishes same-sex relationships, trans people, or simply talking about either, and because governments order internet providers or app stores to cut the apps off. A block is the visible part of the risk, not the largest: in several countries where these apps still work, police have used them to find and arrest people. This page sets out what is documented, dated fact by fact because blocks come and go, and what people living under these laws do, with the limits of each option. It does not explain how to get around a block.

The laws behind the blocks

The Human Dignity Trust, a legal charity, counts 66 jurisdictions that criminalise consensual sex between people of the same sex, and 13 countries that criminalise the gender identity or expression of trans people through so-called cross-dressing, impersonation and disguise laws. ILGA World, which counts only United Nations member states, gives 65 in June 2026, and says the number rose in 2025 for the first time in almost a decade, when Burkina Faso criminalised same-sex relations and Trinidad and Tobago's decriminalisation was reversed. The two counts differ because they measure different things; both are worth checking for the country you are in.

Some of these laws name trans people directly. In April 2024 Iraq's parliament passed a law that punishes same-sex relations with 10 to 15 years in prison and imitating women, which it defines as wearing makeup and women's clothing or appearing as women in public, with one to three years, Human Rights Watch reported.

A second family of laws targets speech rather than sex. ILGA World counts at least 63 UN member states that limit freedom of expression on sexual orientation or gender identity. One of the furthest-reaching is Russia, whose Supreme Court declared an international LGBT movement extremist in 2023. By June 2025 Human Rights Watch had counted 101 convictions linked to that label, 90 of them for online activity such as posts, images and profile information, including one based on a dating website and one involving the blue, pink and white trans flag. Under laws like these, a dating profile is not only a way to meet someone. It can be treated as evidence.

Three ways an app gets blocked

The first is a network block: the government orders internet providers to stop traffic to the app. Türkiye, which is not on the Human Dignity Trust's list of countries that criminalise same-sex relations, blocked Grindr in September 2013 after a ruling by an Istanbul criminal court. The ruling was not published, so the reason was not known at the time, and the app could still be downloaded but no longer worked properly. Lebanon's Telecommunications Ministry ordered Grindr blocked in May 2019. In Türkiye the pressure has since widened: police raids that began on 12 September 2026 led to more than 60 arrests in 15 provinces, and more than 180 social media accounts of LGBTI groups, activists and others were blocked or restricted, Amnesty International reported three days later.

The second is a store removal: the government asks Apple or Google to take an app out of its national store. In January 2018 Blued disappeared from Google Play in Indonesia at the request of the communications ministry, which said up to 14 apps had been removed for what it called LGBT-related pornographic content and had reportedly asked for 73. The iPhone version was still available at the time. In November 2025 Apple removed Blued and Finka from its Chinese store on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, and both also vanished from Android stores there, AFP reported. Grindr had been removed from Chinese stores in 2022. China is not on the Human Dignity Trust's list either.

The third is a crackdown on dating apps in general, which takes LGBTQ apps with it. In September 2020 Pakistan's telecommunications regulator blocked Tinder, Grindr, Tagged, Skout and SayHi, citing immoral and indecent content.

We could not confirm that each of these blocks is still in force, and new ones are not always announced. Treat any list of banned apps, this one included, as a snapshot. An app that opens is not proof that it is safe to use where you are, and an app you cannot find may have been left out by its developer rather than banned.

Where apps work, police have used them

In the cases documented below, the danger came from apps that worked, and from people who were not who they said they were.

• In a report published in February 2023, Human Rights Watch documented 20 cases in which security forces in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan created fake profiles on Grindr and Facebook to entrap LGBT people. It also documented 17 cases of extortion by private individuals, and the six people who reported extortion to the authorities were themselves arrested. Trans women detainees were routinely held in men's cells.
• In Egypt, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights found that the morals police's most common method was fake accounts on dating apps for gay and trans people, especially trans women, according to Article 19's 2018 report.
• In Dagestan, in Russia, security forces used a detained man's phone in 2024 to arrange dates with other gay men, then took their phones and pressured them to cooperate, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported in February 2026. The same report describes a man in Siberia who answered a trans woman's advert on a dating site, posed as an investigator and attacked her; a lawyer said he had targeted other trans women too.
• In Morocco in April 2020, private individuals created fake accounts on same-sex dating apps and spread photos of the men they found there. Activists told Human Rights Watch that some families threw people out of their homes as a result.

The pattern repeats across these reports: a profile, a conversation that builds trust, a meeting somewhere private, and a phone searched afterwards. Hiding dating apps on your phone goes through what a search finds and why hiding does little against it, and how to spot a fake profile covers the warning signs, knowing that a patient impostor may show none.

Why some apps stay out of a country

Not every missing app was banned. Developers choose which countries their app is offered in, and Google Play applies that choice by the country a store account is registered in, which is why an app can stay on a traveller's phone in a country where it is not offered. When digital rights campaigners found LGBTQ apps missing from Apple's store in 152 countries in 2021, Apple said that in many cases the developers had chosen not to offer them there, and that 4 of the 61 apps monitored had been removed for specific legal reasons.

Some apps also act inside a country. Tinder automatically hides the profile of an LGBTQIA+ user who opens the app in a country where identifying as LGBTQIA+ is criminalised, and lets them choose whether to stay hidden. During the Moroccan outing campaign, one app sent its users warnings in French and Moroccan Arabic with a helpline number, and another blocked every profile created since the campaign began.

T4TSpace, a dating app by and for trans and non-binary people, has also chosen not to distribute its mobile app in a number of countries, because of the laws, crackdowns and police practices described on this page. Staying out of a store has limits too. Google says that when an app is unpublished, people who already installed it can go on using it, and an app already on your phone is still there to be found, whatever the store now shows.

What people do, and the limits of each option

People living under these laws still look for each other. Research describes several ways of doing it, and each has a cost. This is a description, not a recommendation.

• A VPN routes your connection through another network, so your internet provider sees less. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stresses that it is not a tool for anonymity: the VPN company can see your traffic and can be asked for it by the authorities, and it does nothing for what is stored on your phone. In some countries the VPN adds legal risk of its own. In Russia, since 1 September 2025, deliberately searching for material labelled extremist, including through a VPN, is punishable by a fine, and Russia's courts have put that label on the LGBT movement; officials said prosecutors would have to prove intent. In the United Arab Emirates, Freedom House reports that using a VPN to commit a crime is itself punishable. Article 19 found people relying on VPNs without knowing the risks of insecure ones.
• Going quiet on a mainstream app, with gender and orientation hidden, keeps you out of strangers' view. It does not hide you from people you have already matched with, and Article 19 found screenshots of profiles widely taken and used for blackmail.
• Limiting photos. Article 19 found users who shared only their body or only their face, and pointed out that the authorities can use either kind of picture against them.
• Moving to another app when one is targeted. The same research found that people tend to move together to the next popular app, and noted that the more widely used an app is, the more attention it draws from the authorities and from people looking to target LGBTQ users.
• Stepping back from apps for a while, and meeting through friends and community networks you already trust. Staying closeted for your own safety is a decision you are allowed to make, not a failure.

None of these makes dating safe where the law is against you. Each one reduces a specific risk, and knowing which risk you face, whether family, strangers or the police, tells you which ones are worth their cost.

Where to check the law, and where to find help

Laws change quickly, and this page is not legal advice. For a specific country, the Human Dignity Trust's country profiles, which show when each was last updated, and ILGA World's database are the places to check before you travel or install anything.

If you need to get to safety, Rainbow Railroad works with LGBTQI+ people facing violence, through emergency travel when it can, financial aid, applications for government sponsorship and relocation within their own country. Access Now's Digital Security Helpline gives free technical help in ten languages, including Arabic, French, Spanish and Russian, to activists, journalists and other civil society groups, and says it answers within two hours; not every individual will fall within its remit.

If someone has revealed that you are trans or queer without your consent, that is outing, and what to do if you've been outed sets out the first steps. If you are dating without your history being known, dating while stealth goes through what to keep off a profile. What this page can do is make the risks visible, so that the choices, including the choice not to use an app at all, stay yours.