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Can someone tell me how to change the country preference for Google Play? I have searched high and low but in most of the forums people ask you to go to Gmail settings -> edit profile and change the country there. But there is no place to change the country in settings! There is a something called place (which can be marked as current) but that has no impact on Google Play.

I don't want to circumvent country restrictions, I want to permanently change the country. So it's NOT a duplicate of How can I circumvent regional restrictions in Google's Play Store?.

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  • I am not sure, but this is what I observed. I had observed that Google Play shows currencies and contents based on the GSM/Wifi carrier info. I say this so as I observed when moving to UK and back to India.
    – Narayanan
    Commented Mar 26, 2013 at 8:53
  • @Narayanan: It doesnt do that for me. Still shows the old currency.
    – bobbyalex
    Commented Mar 26, 2013 at 8:57
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    As per this web site, it seems earlier restriction was based on SIM and now it is based on IP address. But still not clear about your case.
    – Narayanan
    Commented Mar 26, 2013 at 11:13
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    I contacted Google support on this: they asked me to add a payment method valid in the new country. Tried; didnt work. They asked me to do a hard reset of the phone: tried; didnt work. Sigh!
    – bobbyalex
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 9:20
  • try this forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=694720
    – IsmailS
    Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 6:57

7 Answers 7

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What turned out to actually do it in the end, was to make an actual purchase.

In Google wallet, I had updated all my information, as well as added a new card with my new address attached to it. This in itself however didn't seem to be enough.

Later though, I actually purchased something through Play using the new card, and after that I could access things in Play that previously could not due to regional restrictions.

There may be some form of prioritization between different cards, so it's possible that you need to remove your pre-existing cards as well.

Michael Hoffman mentions that it may be enough to

Click to begin a download until you reach the "Accept and buy" screen

and thus there is no need to complete the purchase. Otherwise, getting a refund after the purchase could save you the money.

For those moving countries, it might be useful to check Googles acceptable Payment methods page.

I don't know if it's necessary, but user Ikon also adds this after adding a new card:

Went to the apps settings and wiped Play's data. Rebooted phone, accepted terms again for Play and now I can install

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    You can even get a refund afterwards, and the country will still stick. (It doesn't seem to be a caching problem; only updating the information didn't do anything for me for days. You have to actually make a purchase.)
    – Jo Liss
    Commented May 4, 2013 at 18:26
  • Also, non-US residents should be aware that Amex is treated differently: support.google.com/googleplay/answer/105916 At first I used an amex card and still had the problem, but when I instead used a MasterCard it was fixed.
    – Ben Parsons
    Commented Jun 24, 2013 at 10:23
  • I dont' have a card from my new country. I guess it's impossible to change the Play Store region without making a new Google account, in this case.
    – Adam Millerchip
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 7:21
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    What made the trick for me, after doing all of the above, I also (thanks to google support) deleted the download manager app cache.
    – Noam Peled
    Commented Aug 15, 2015 at 19:24
  • If I don't have a US Visa or US Credit Card, will it also work if I load a USD Google Gift Card? I wanted to change my default country to US, because there are apps that I wanted to download which are only available in the said country.
    – Logan Wayne
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 7:50
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I called Google Play support and they sent me these instructions:

If you're having issues viewing your intended country's Play Store and would like to change your default payment method or update an existing billing address in Google Wallet, please use the following steps:

1) Sign into your Google Wallet account to manage your payment methods (https://wallet.google.com/manage/paymentMethods)

2) Delete all of your payment methods from Google Wallet, and only add a card to one with a billing address located inside your desired country

3) Open the Play Store and navigate to any item available for download

4) Click to begin a download until you reach the "Accept and buy" screen (no need to complete the purchase)

5) Close the Play Store and clear data for the Google Play Store application (Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Clear Data) or clear your browser cache

6) Re-open the Play Store. You should now see the Play Store that matches your default payment instrument's billing country.

If you haven't yet added a payment method to your account for the first time, please add a card directly from the Play Store with a billing address that matches your intended country location. Then, follow steps 3 through 6 to show your intended country's Play Store.

Following these instructions allowed me to install apps limited to my new country without making a purchase.

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    Followed all the above steps, including adding a new credit card with a new billing address, but it didn't work. So then I went to wallet.google.com, Settings, and changed my Home Address, then went to the Address book tab and removed my old address. I was then prompted to accept the new Terms and Conditions for my new country. Went to the device settings and cleared the data for the Google Play Store application (Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Clear Data). Reopened the Play Store and it worked! Thankfully no need to make a purchase.
    – tekumara
    Commented Nov 1, 2013 at 12:48
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    I succeeded in using this method. An important thing is change the settings of the Google Play app so that it requires entering the password for confirmation before purchase. Otherwise you will end up actually purchasing the app in step 4. (You have to tap the Purchase button. Just seeing the dialog box with this button is not sufficient.)
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 10:51
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    I had to restart my phone and clear play's cache several times to succeed.
    – Vanuan
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 10:03
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    What if someone lives in two countries? (stays for a quite similar amount of time in both of them) and of course wants to use application for both regions.
    – razor
    Commented Apr 20, 2015 at 14:43
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    I've been struggling with this for a week, I even bought an application with my new card. So, it turned out that the address that needs to be changed on Google Wallet is not on the Address Book tab, but under the Settings button in the top right-hand corner.
    – jFrenetic
    Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 0:51
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The settings you have to change are at wallet.google.com. Sign in with your account, go to Settings, and change "Home address" to your new address. You might also have to change your phone number, and your default "Billing and delivery address" in the second tab.

Note that this will not let you buy contents from a country you don't live in, since you need a credit card and an IP from that country.

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    Already did this. Doesn't work.
    – bobbyalex
    Commented Apr 21, 2013 at 14:00
  • @BobbyAlexander Have you seen my answer? I did the same thing, got stuck just like you did, and then tried buying a cheap game with the new card, and then it worked. :)
    – Letharion
    Commented Apr 22, 2013 at 16:08
  • Do i need to change that address and card info, everytime i'm changing location ? (if someone lives in two countries for similar amount of a time - like, one month here, one month there)
    – razor
    Commented Apr 20, 2015 at 14:46
  • This worked for me without having to make a purchase.
    – Pastafarian
    Commented Feb 19, 2017 at 6:50
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One thing you might try is to uninstall all of the Google Play Store updates. When the updates get re-applied some people have found that it fixed their country issue.

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    +1, this worked for me. Uninstall updates then a reboot did the job
    – user155695
    Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 3:30
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    +1, Tried all of the things in previous answers multiple times. added a new card, do purchase, reset data, reboot. Finally did this and my country was updated correctly
    – Gayan
    Commented Aug 5, 2015 at 5:58
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    this worked. I tried changing the address everywhere and even tried making a purchase with the new card before trying this
    – user1587457
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 5:14
  • This worked for me after also updating my payment profiles to use the address in my new country, and disabling my old profile.
    – Eric
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 2:22
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If you have ever set up a Merchant account with Google Wallet, then you can apparently not change your country any more.

What I did was creating a new Google account while being in the desired country (physically) and add it as a secondary account on my phone. I was not asked for a phone number or billing details, so I guess that this might also work if you use VPN.

After doing that, I was able to switch to that account in the Play Store app and install a country-specific app. You can keep your old apps, the set of apps on your phone is the union of the apps on all enabled Google accounts. You can easily switch between accounts in the Play store to install region-specific apps.

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Google is making it easier, as reported today, to change the country to a different one. From Android Police on 2018/03/20:

Now, Google appears to be taking one teeny tiny step toward making the switch easier for some people. If your Play Store country is set to country A (whether you lived there or, uhm, fooled Google into thinking you did because you made a purchase with a valid payment method and to a valid shipping address in that country), and the Play Store detects that you've moved to country B (likely based on your IP address), you'll get a new option in the Account settings: Country and profiles. There you'll see which country your Store account is on and an option to quickly switch to the new country - provided you have a valid payment method there.

There are some caveats to this:

Keep in mind that this Country and profiles option won't be there for everyone and won't let you switch to any country you want. It appears to only show up when it detects a discrepancy between your setting and your IP address.

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  • More details now: You can only do it once per year, and the feature is not available for Family Library members.
    – SSS
    Commented Jun 14, 2018 at 7:49
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It may be helpful to some to note that some apps will only install if the device itself is physically inside the "permitted country." As an example, while traveling in Israel, my bank did not allow me to install its mobile banking app on my American phone with an American google account. The Play Store complained that 'this app cannot be installed in your device's country.' (or something very close to that :))

It did not help to change my location using fakeGPS. However, I it did help to install a VPN (I used TunnelBear, since the trial version with 500MB is free), delete the cache of play services, and force-stop google play services and the play store. After doing this, i got 'this app is compatible with your device'. To be frugal, I then turned OFF the VPN before I hit the install button, and the install proceeded without trouble.

Clearly, the check was based on the external IP address of the device, and once the check is made at the beginning, and the Install button is active, you can change your address back to its normal, "forbidden" value.

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