How to Change Google Play Store Region/ Country [Tested]
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Sometimes, you may find yourself wanting to download a certain app from Play Store but then find you can’t have it due to its unavailability in your country.
Yes, each country has a different Play Store according to the region.
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This means that different apps, games, movies, and TV shows may not be available depending on where you are located.
So what if you need to download an app that is not available in your region? Will you just give up on it?
Will you look for an alternative? What if there is no alternative? In such a case, you may need to change the country of your Google Play Store.
Firstly, Google determines your country of origin using two things:
- your Google Wallet settings
- your IP.
Changing the former only works if you have moved countries and want to access the new Google Play Store.
However, if you haven’t moved and just want to unlock geo-restricted apps on Play Store, you’ll have to go for the latter.
You will not have to travel the globe to access different content. This is thanks to the ability to virtually change your IP location using a VPN.
- Clean your cached location
As mentioned earlier, Google Play Store determines your location using your IP address, then stores information about you in order to use it for your future visits.
All your location details are usually cached in your app data, and therefore the first thing is to get rid of it.
Here’s how to:
1. Go to Settings on your smartphone.
2. Navigate to Downloaded Apps.
3. Select Google Play Store.
4. After you open the App settings, tap Force Stop
5. Tap Clear Data
What this step does is clear your cached information, leaving Play Store with no data about you. It gets in a clean state for your next connection. - Sign up with a VPN
A VPN is the most valuable tool when it comes to accessing geo-restricted content.
What it does, is it reroutes your traffic through a remote server as well as encrypts it for security purposes.
In our case, the primary role of the VPN is to connect us to a remote server, such that our traffic appears to be originating from the country where the server is located.
Once connected, you will be given an IP address belonging to that country, such that Play Store will see a different IP from your actual one.
If you have connected to a US server, you will be given an IP address belonging to the US. Google Play Store will therefore avail you US content.
However, before you purchase a VPN for unlocking Play Store, you need to consider their servers.
The VPN you subscribe to needs to have a server in your target country, otherwise you won’t be able to unblock their Play Store. Having many servers in different countries is a plus for the best VPN to unblock Play Store.
For Google Play Store, we recommend ExpressVPN. It has servers in 94 countries, so it’s very likely it will offer you multiple locations in your region of choice.
You can also use our in-depth guide that covers the VPNs with most countries available. This way, you’ll be sure to make an informed decision. - Set your location
Before you get to this step, make sure you have already cleared the above steps.
You can then open your VPN app and choose a server.
The server you choose must be based in the country that you want your Google Play Store to think you are in.
This will have your traffic routed through that country’s server, and you will be given an IP belonging to that country. - Re-launch Google Play store
After you have completed the last step, you can then reload your Google Play Store app.
You should now be having content for the specific country to whose server you are connected.
In case you want to set a different country after you have already tried one, you will have to clear Google
Changing Google Play Store Location Using PC/ Mac
If you do not wish to follow the smartphone procedure or if it doesn’t work for whatever reasons, you can also download the content using your PC/ Mac browser.
To do this, you can:
- Set up your VPN on the computer.
- Connect the VPN to your country of choice.
- You can then head over to Google Play Store using your browser.
- The store you get here should be for the specific country to which you are connected.
- You can search for the Android App you wish to have and then click install.
What happens is that Google Play Store will sync your computer with your smartphone, and the app will start installing automatically.
If you are having any issues, you can get in contact by leaving a comment below.
Note: If the app you need to download is not free, you may need to have a payment method based in the country you are connecting to.
