How to watch The Handmaid’s Tale season 6: Stream first three episodes for FREE weeks before UK release
After years of waiting, The Handmaid’s Tale is back for its final season. If you’re counting down the days until you can stream the final episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale in the UK — mark May 3, 2025 in your calendar.
Prime Video will begin showing The Handmaid’s Tale S06 on that Sunday evening, with the first three episodes released simultaneously. After that, a new episode will be added weekly until the finale on June 21, 2025.
But VPNs can offer a shortcut for those who can’t wait until the UK release of the final season of the show.
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NordVPN has kickstarted its latest sale with 3 free months and 73% off your remaining subscription. That drops the effective monthly price of this award-winner to just £2.39. Since you’ll need to commit to a two-year plan to unlock the maximum savings, Nord offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all subscriptions
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Sign-up to an annual plan with ExpressVPN and unlock an additional four months of its award-winning service for free. ExpressVPN has apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Fire TV, Apple TV, routers, and even gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. It offers 24/7 customer support and a 30-day money-back guarantee, which serves like a free trial
Prime Video is one of the perks included with Prime membership, which costs £8.99 a month — or £95 annually. You’ll also unlock unlimited next-day delivery on thousands of items sold on Amazon at no extra cost, thousands of songs and playlists via Amazon Music, unlimited photo storage via Amazon Photos, and more.
Like all previous seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale in the UK, Channel 4 will also broadcast the same episodes. These will be available on the free-to-air channel across Freeview, Freely — a service that didn’t exist last time the hit US show was on UK screens, Sky Stream and Sky Glass, Virgin Media TV, and phones and tablets with the Channel 4 app. Channel 4 is the first public service broadcaster to support Apple’s £3,500 Vision Pro too.
Channel 4 viewers can stream all episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale for free — as long as you’re willing to put up with adverts interrupting the show. It also offers a paid subscription tier, £3.99 a month, that removes adverts.
Despite being a paid service, Prime Video introduced adverts last year. You can pay an extra £2.99 a month to remove these ad breaks during films and shows, like The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1 – 5 are available to stream in full on Prime Video now.
Likewise, all previously-aired episodes of the award-winning show will be accessible on Channel 4 ahead of the final series launch.
What about those watching outside of the UK?
Viewers in the United States were treated to the first three episodes of Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale on April 8, 2025. New episodes will be released weekly on Hulu until the final episode airs on May 27, 2025.
That’s a full four weeks before the same episode is broadcast on Prime Video and Channel 4 in the UK. In fact, by the time UK viewers get access to any of this show, US audiences will be halfway through the final season.
If you’re desperate to see what happens to June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) in her battle against the totalitarian regime that once held her captive — or avoid spoilers from US viewers sharing their thoughts across social media or in online articles — then it is possible to stream The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 early in the UK.
This staggered international release schedule will be familiar to fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, with Season 5 arriving on Prime Video and Channel 4 almost six months after the US viewers had streamed every episode. UK viewers consistently recieve new episodes later than their American counterparts.
But UK viewers can use a VPN to stream new episodes of Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale for free on Hulu at the same time as those in the United States can watch.
Start your free trial with Hulu (US only)
VPNs work by encrypting all of your online traffic by routing it via a VPN server. Choosing a VPN server location in another country changes your IP address and makes it appear as if you’re browsing from somewhere else on the world.
Choosing a VPN server in the USA will enable The Handmaid’s Tale fans living in the UK stream episodes at the same time as they’re broadcast on Hulu. Since Hulu is geo-restricted to the United States, you must be using a VPN with US server locations to bypass these limitations and access the streamer.
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 is also streaming free on SBS On Demand in Australia.
Like those in the United States, Aussie viewers were able to start the final season of the award-winning show from April 8. The first three episodes were all shared on SBS On Demand at the same time.
Start watching on SBS On Demand (Australia only)
Instead of Hulu, it’s possible to leverage your VPN subscription to tune-in to SBS On Demand service from Australia to start binge-watching the first three of the 10-episode run for this final series.
Adapted from the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Offred (Elisabeth Moss), one of the few fertile women known as Handmaids in the oppressive Republic of Gilead, struggles to survive as a reproductive surrogate for a powerful Commander and his resentful wife.
In the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, June’s unyielding spirit and determination pull her back into the fight to take down Gilead. Luke and Moira join the resistance.
Serena tries to reform Gilead while Commander Lawrence and Aunt Lydia reckon with what they have wrought, and Nick faces challenging tests of character. This final chapter of June’s journey highlights the importance of hope, courage, solidarity, and resilience in the pursuit of justice and freedom.
The season features returning cast members including Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Bradley Whitford, Max Minghella, Ann Dowd, O-T Fagbenle, Samira Wiley, and Madeline Brewer. New additions to the cast include Josh Charles from The Good Wife and D’Arcy Carden from The Good Place.
The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Yahlin Chang has revealed that the finale will include “victory and feelings of hope and triumph and uplift.” She has confirmed the 10-episode final season will lay groundwork for the upcoming adaptation of Atwood’s sequel novel, The Testaments.
“There will be cliffhangers for The Testaments,” Chang explained, while assuring that The Handmaid’s Tale will conclude “in some very satisfying ways.”
List of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 episodes
Showrunner Yahlin Chang has confirmed the epic conclusion to the award-winning The Handmaid’s Tale will consist of 10 episodes. In the USA and Australia, where the final season started on April 8, the first three episodes—titled Train, Exile, and Devotion — were released simultaneously.
The remaining episodes are titled:
PromotionJanineSurpriseShatteredExodusExecutionThe Handmaid’s Tale
It’s unclear whether UK broadcasters will follow the same pattern when the new season begins on May 3, 2025.
Best VPN to stream The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6
For a limited time, NordVPN is offering 3 months for free.
The generous giveaway is only available when new or returning subscribers sign up for a two-year plan with the popular VPN provider. NordVPN will slash your remaining subscription by 77% for bigger savings.
If you’re concerned about launching into such a long contract, NordVPN offers a 30-day no-quibbles money-back guarantee. If you’re unhappy with the service, VPN server locations, NordVPN apps, or anything else… you can cancel the two-year plan within that initial 30-day period and spend nothing.
Trial NordVPN during 30-day money-back period
NordVPN is available as a standalone VPN subscription, but can also be paired with several other popular services, including a password manager to generate, encrypt and store one-of-a-kind alpha-numeric passwords for all of your online accounts and apps.
Nord also operates a secure Google Drive competitor too.
NordVPN can also scan your downloads for malware and automatically issues alerts when your personal details or passwords have been leaked on the Dark Web.
Sign-up for 3 months of NordVPN for FREE
NordVPN has kickstarted its latest sale with 3 free months and 73% off your remaining subscription. That drops the effective monthly price of this award-winner to just £2.39. Since you’ll need to commit to a two-year plan to unlock the maximum savings, Nord offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all subscription
It’s not the only NordVPN that’s offering free access to its VPN at the moment, ExpressVPN will treat new subscribers to 4 months for free.
The freebie will be awarded to anyone who signs up for an annual plan.
Trial ExpressVPN during 30-day money-back period
ExpressVPN has apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Fire TV, Apple TV, routers, and even gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. It offers 24/7 customer support and a 30-day money-back guarantee, which serves like a free trial.
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No matter which of these best VPN deals you choose, setting up everything to start streaming The Handmaid’s Tale from anywhere in the world is simple enough. Follow the below steps to get started:
Install the VPN app on whichever device you want to use to watch The Handmaid’s TaleSign-in with your login — NordVPN lets you use up to 10 devices at the same timeChoose a VPN server location (UK if you want to stream on Channel 4, US for Hulu)Start a free trial with Hulu for US air datesStart streaming on your device as if you were reclined on a sofa in the States
Hulu requires a subscription, which starts from $9.99 per month. However, if you haven’t watched on the US-only streamer before, you can get started with a free trial. Be aware that you may need a US payment method to sign up, though some VPN providers offer workarounds for this issue.
Even if you’re not fussed about waiting the extra month until episodes become available in the UK, you might need a VPN to continue watching uninterrupted if you’re abroad on your holidays.
Channel 4 is geo-restricted to the UK. Prime Video is available in hundreds of countries worldwide, but Amazon varies the catalogue of shows and films in each location based on the rights agreements signed in each territory. So, even though Prime Video is available …it doesn’t mean that The Handmaid’s Tale will be available to stream.
What is a VPN?
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is software that protects and anonymises everything you do online. VPNs can conceal your online activities by routing traffic through an encrypted tunnel that connects to secure servers worldwide.
The most reliable VPNs employ the same encryption standard as governments in the United Kingdom and the United States, ensuring that even your Internet Service Provider (ISP) connected to Wi-Fi cannot record the websites you visit, the duration of your sessions on each site, or your current location. This protection extends to advertisers, trackers, and hackers, preventing them from monitoring your online behaviour.
Furthermore, personal information entered into online forms and sensitive data transmitted to and from your device will be safeguarded from hackers using strong encryption provided by a VPN.