Do you want to get a Google account in another nation? Need to access the Google Play Store and download an app in another country? How can it be done?
If you own an Android device and want to download an application or buy a product in the Google Play Store, you need to have a Google account. The Google account is registered to a certain nation in most cases, but things have evolved here over the years.
A couple of years ago you would automatically access the Google store in the nation you were in. You could, in other words, have a Google account registered in the United States, but in the moment you arrived to Paris (France) and entered the store to download an app, you would access the French store instead. This had its advantages, but also big disadvantages. Recently Google has changed this, and if you have a Google account registered to one certain nation, you will remain in that “store”, no matter where you might be in the world. How does this work?
How does the Google Play Store work when it comes to your location?
We currently work with three different Google accounts on our Android device. We have one that is located in Hungary, one in Norway, and one in the United States. At any time we can swap between the different users. As a consequence, we have access to the Google Play Store in all three nations at the same time, no matter where I might be in the world. But, what if we wanted to get access to the Swedish Google Play Store, or maybe the Canadian Google Play Store? It might be for the purpose of downloading a program, or maybe it is to buy a movie. What can be done?
Create a new Google profile in another country
Let us say that we are in need of a new Google profile in Canada. We are currently living in France, but need a Canadian Google Play account. This is what we need to do!
- Visit Google.com and sign up for a new account.
- It is very important to set your desired country as a location in the process of registering your new account. For us that is Canada.
- Now you need a VPN and you need to connect to a server in Canada. We recommend using ExpressVPN for this purpose.
Sign up for ExpressVPN, download the client and connect to a server in Canada. - As you now visit the Google Play Store, you will get access to the Canadian Google Play Store. If this is for the purpose of downloading a program to your Android device, then it is perfect. If you however want to buy products, movies, books, or apps in the store, you will need to do even more.
To be able to pay for a product in the Canadian Google Play Store, you will need to add a payment method to your account. This has got to be a Canadian payment card. But, it can also be an easier option.
Visit eBay and buy a Canadian Google Play Store gift card there. You then add the money to your account, and once the money has been added, you can purchase products from the Canadian store.
Do I always need to use a VPN to access the Canadian Google Play Store?
No, you do not! It is only until you have added funds to your account in that given nation, or until you have added a valid payment method in that given nation. Let us say that you have bought a 10 Dollar gift card for the Canadian Google Play Store on eBay and added it to your account. Once this is done your Google account will be forever Canadian, and no VPN is needed anymore.
The freedom of not adding a payment method
If you do not add a payment method to your Google account, then you can simply use a VPN as described at the start of this article. Connect to a server in the nation in which you want to download an application from the Google Play Store. You might need to enter Settings, Applications and find Google Play Store and delete Data/Cache first, and then re-open Google Play Store. You will then be able to switch between different nations using this method.
What about other countries like Germany, Sweden, France, etc?
The method that can be used is exactly the same for these nations. You can for example create a Google account and use a VPN. As long as no payment method has been added, you will simply go with the flow and visit the Google Play Store in the nation in which you are in (which then can be modified using a VPN). But, if you permanently want access to a country, a payment method is needed. That is harder for smaller countries, and you do not find gift cards easily for such nations on eBay. Our best suggestion might be to find someone on Facebook, some chat channel, or in a forum in that given nation that might be willing to buy an actual gift card for you, and you of course pay them the money back and some more as a thank you.
Have you got any questions or comments? Use the comment field beneath!
While creating account it asks for a phone number for verification and if I’m from India then it will restrict the account usage to India.
You don’t need to add an American phone number to verify your account, it should only be an option that will increase security.
This doesn’t seem to work. I just tried adding a new account (twice), and I had no option to select a country/location.
It will automatically set your country to the location of your IP address. That is why it is important to use a VPN in the process. Later, if you register a payment card to the account, issued in that country, or if you add a Google Play gift card from that country, you will “settle” the location of the Google account to that country forever.
I don’t think this is correct! You can still use a VPN to change your Google Play Region, but notice… it only works until you add a payment method. As soon as you add a Visa Card, PayPal or something else as a payment method, you will be limited to that region later… Hope you can update the article with this information!
Very useful feedback, I just updated the article!
Is there a way to buy gift cards for Google Play Store in Germany somewhere online? Do you know? I found ways to buy for the US and Canadian store, but nothing else.
I have been looking a bit around, but I have a hard time finding a good solution if you want to buy gift cards in Germany (and most other nations). The problem is that you can often buy them in actual stores only, meaning that you can not buy them online. If anyone has further advises on this topic, I would love for them to write a comment and share their info and help!