Cloudflare Blocked in Spain: What’s Happening and How to Fix It

In recent months, many internet users in Spain have found they can’t access websites that rely on Cloudflare — even when those sites have nothing to do with piracy or streaming. This is because, in an effort to stop illegal football streaming, Spanish ISPs have been blocking certain Cloudflare IP ranges. The result: thousands of perfectly legitimate websites have been caught in the crossfire.

Why is Cloudflare Being Blocked in Spain?

The root cause dates back to a court order issued in December 2024, in which LaLiga (Spain’s top football league) gained legal authority to ask Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block IP addresses associated with piracy.

Because Cloudflare is a major CDN and hosting provider — and because many pirate-streaming sites reportedly used Cloudflare’s infrastructure — the order effectively forced ISPs to block shared Cloudflare IP ranges.

Unfortunately, Cloudflare uses shared IP addresses: a single IP may serve many different websites. That means blocking one IP effectively blocks dozens, hundreds, or thousands of unrelated legitimate sites.

In March 2025, a Spanish court upheld the blocking order, rejecting appeals from Cloudflare and other providers.

As a result, since February 2025, many Cloudflare-hosted websites have become intermittently or permanently inaccessible to users in Spain — especially during football match days when the anti-piracy measures are enforced.

What Are Users in Spain Experiencing?

• Entire websites load slowly, time out, or fail to load at all.
• Some services (e.g., APIs, static assets, embedded fonts) break, even when the main site loads.
• The problem intensifies around weekends / match days, indicating temporary or dynamic blocks.
• Individuals and businesses — from blogs to e-commerce sites and SaaS APIs — are all affected.

This is not a technical glitch — it’s ISP-driven, legally mandated blocking. And the collateral damage is significant.

Quick Fixes: What Spanish Users Can Do

If you’re in Spain and you find certain sites are unreachable, here are some short-term workarounds:

1. Switch DNS providers

Try public DNS servers (e.g., 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8).
Note: This may help in some cases — but if the block is at the IP-routing level, DNS changes alone won’t bypass it.

2. Use cached or mirror versions of affected sites

Some websites may maintain alternate domains or cached copies elsewhere.

3. Use a trusted VPN

A good VPN can route your traffic through servers outside Spain — bypassing local ISP blocks entirely and restoring access to Cloudflare-hosted sites.

If you want a clean, reliable solution, SafeShell VPN is an option worth considering. With SafeShell VPN you can connect via secure servers outside Spain, regain access to blocked sites, and maintain privacy — all with a simple setup.

4. Check if the site offers an alternate CDN or domain

Some site owners may migrate away from Cloudflare or provide mirror URLs to mitigate ongoing disruption.

Is This a Cloudflare Problem — Or an ISP Problem?

It’s important to understand that Cloudflare itself isn’t “down.” The blocking is enforced by ISPs in compliance with legal orders. Because the blocking targets IP ranges (not individual domains), any website sharing those IPs — legitimate or not — becomes inaccessible.

Cloudflare has publicly criticized the broad nature of these blocks, arguing they cause “massive collateral damage” and harm the principle of an open Internet.

However, for the time being, the blocking remains in effect — especially during football matchdays.

Conclusion

If you or your users are in Spain, the blocking of Cloudflare IP ranges means many websites — from small blogs to large services — may become unreachable, unpredictably.

For individuals needing to stay connected and businesses that rely on stable web access, this disruption is more than an inconvenience: it can impact work, communication, and even revenue.

For now, switching DNS or using cached pages may sometimes work. But a more reliable approach is to use a VPN like SafeShell VPN — especially for frequent web users, remote workers, developers, or anyone impacted by these blocks.

We’ll keep monitoring the situation. Meanwhile, we recommend sharing this post with friends or colleagues in Spain who may be facing similar connectivity issues — and encouraging them to try a privacy-focused VPN to stay connected.