How to Change the Country of Your Apple ID?

Apple integrates software and hardware seamlessly to offer successful products. You can transfer data across iPhone, iPad, iMac and MacBook using a single Apple account. However, many countries apply legal restrictions to use the products across the world. Due to this situation, you may need to change the country of your Apple ID. In this article, we will explain how you can do that along with restrictions and implications.

Why You Should Change the Country?

Here are some of the reasons you may need to change the country of your Apple ID:

• You want to download an app that is not available in your country’s App Store. In recent days, it has been a trend that many countries like US and India removed many popular Chinese apps like WeChat, PUBG, etc. the only option for you is to change the country of your Apple ID and download these apps.
• You travel to another country for medium or short term and want to use the apps from the destination country’s App Store.
• Your country’s App Store removed VPN apps that you want to use on your phone or Macintosh.
• Some apps like Netflix do not offer service on all countries. You have to switch App Store in order to use their service.

Change Country of Apple ID

If you have logged in to multiple Apple devices using single account, we recommend you to change the country from your MacBook. This helps you to apply the changes instantly compared to changing on mobile devices. Here we will explain changing from both Mac and iPhone. You can follow the same steps of iPhone in iPad as well.

Change Country in Mac

Open App Store and click on your Apple account name shown on the bottom of the left sidebar.

Click on “View Information” link showing on the right section.

Login with your Apple ID and password. You have to login even though you have already logged into your account.

It will take few minutes to load your account information. Here, you can check the current country and billing address of your account. Click on “Change Country or Region” link.

On the next screen, choose your new country from the dropdown.

Based on the country you choose, Apple will show you the available payment options for that country. It is mandatory to select payment method though you will be charged only when you purchase.

Provide your billing address and phone number to save the changes. After successful changes, you will get an email indicating the payment method on your account is changed. You will note the App Store will change the screen to your selected country’s language.

Change Country in iPhone

If you only use iPhone, follow the below instructions to change the country of your Apple ID.

Go to App Store and tap on your account picture shown on top right corner.

Login with your Face/Touch ID or passcode. On the next screen, again tap on your account name.

Tap on “Country/Region” option when you are in the account settings page.

Apple will show a message with warning and you can click on the “Change Country or Region” link.

Select a new country from the list for your account.

Tap on “Agree” link on the top right corner to accept the terms and conditions.

You will see a list of payment methods available for your country and choose the one you want to assign to your account.

Depending upon the payment methods you choose, Apple will offer options to verify or add details. Provide your billing address and tap on “Next” link to finish the process. You will notice the App Store now has a language of the new country you have selected.

Restrictions in Changing Country

Though the process of the changing country looks easy, you have to remember the followings:

• When you are logged into multiple devices, first logout from your App Store on all other devices and change the country in one device. You can login back to see the changes are applied to all App Stores. Remember to logout only from App Store and not the iCloud account which may take days to sync when you login again.
• You can view the payment details from Mac’s “System Preferences > Apple ID” section. However, it will show “on file” and ask you to change it from the App Store.

• You can setup “None” as a payment method for some countries while you will not see this option for other countries.
• Your billing address should match with the selected payment method. For example, countries like China will not allow foreigners to use their App Store. You have to enter the ID card number which is only applicable for citizens. In addition, you will not be able to verify your payment method using the available options. In this case, you can choose “None” as the payment method and later add fund to your account by redeeming Apple gift card.
• Apps not available in your old or new country’s App Store will not get any updates.
• All your subscriptions with automatic renewals will be cancelled at the end of the subscription period.
• Some countries have privacy restriction to keep the iCloud date within their border. When you choose such a country, you will see a message from iCloud informing the details. Make sure you agree to move your data, otherwise you may need to discontinue using iCloud.