Changing Your App Store Region: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide

The price of the same app varies by a factor of three depending on your Apple account country. A subscription billed at €21.99 per month in France can cost under €11 through a Turkish store, and a premium game often drops below two euros in India. The gap is real, documented service by service in our AI subscription comparisons and streaming comparisons.

This guide explains the official country-change procedure, what it requires, and what it costs. It will not tell you to lie about your residence: the risks of changing your region are detailed in a dedicated guide, and they are more concrete than what you typically read elsewhere.

Who this procedure is actually for

Apple designed the country change for three perfectly legitimate situations, and the process is built for them.

• You are relocating. Expatriation, job transfer, studying abroad: your account must follow your new billing address, otherwise your purchases will be declined.
• You are returning to France. An account created during a stay abroad must switch back to France to accept your French card.
• You already have a local payment method. Dual citizens, cross-border residents, people with a bank account in another country: the change is simply updating a fact.

Outside these cases, you enter a zone where Apple’s terms of service are no longer on your side. We return to this at the end.

What to prepare before touching any settings

A country change fails nine times out of ten because one of these conditions is not met. Check them all before starting, otherwise you will end up with a half-migrated account and blocked purchases.

1. An Apple balance of zero

Apple refuses the change as long as any credit remains on the account. The balance is not convertible: it is tied to the currency of the original country. Use it up by purchasing something, or contact Apple Support to request a refund of the remaining amount — the request succeeds in most cases but takes two to three weeks.

2. No active subscriptions through Apple

All subscriptions billed through Apple — iCloud+, Apple Music, but also ChatGPT Plus or Netflix if they were purchased through the iOS app — must be cancelled. They do not migrate. Wait for the end of the already-paid period before changing country, otherwise you lose the remaining days.

Subscriptions purchased outside Apple, directly on the publisher’s website, are unaffected. This is actually a reason to prefer web subscriptions: they survive account changes, and they avoid the Apple commission, which is often passed on in the displayed price.

3. A payment method from the target country

This is the point that blocks everyone. Apple checks the issuing country of the bank card and rejects those that do not match the account country. Three options, in decreasing order of reliability:

1. An App Store gift card from the target country. This is the most robust method: the code is applied to the account, funds the balance in the local currency, and allows selecting “None” as the payment method. Buy it from a retailer in the relevant country.
2. A bank card actually issued in that country. Works obviously, but requires a local bank account.
3. A multi-country neobank. Some virtual cards are accepted, others are not, and the behavior changes without notice. Not to be considered reliable.

4. A valid billing address

Apple requires a complete and consistent address: street, city, postal code in the correct format, and often a phone number from the country. The form validates the postal code format, not its actual existence. Using an address that is not yours is precisely what turns an authorized operation into a contractual breach.

The procedure on iPhone and iPad

This is the shortest path, and the one Apple promotes.

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top of the screen.
2. Tap Media & Purchases, then View Account. Authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or password.
3. Tap Country/Region.
4. Tap Change Country or Region, then choose the target country from the list.
5. Read and accept the terms and conditions for the chosen country. They are written in the local language: this is normal, and the contract that binds you is indeed that one.
6. Enter the payment method and billing address. If you loaded a gift card beforehand, the None option appears in the payment method list — that is the one to choose.
7. Confirm. The App Store immediately switches to the new country’s store.

If the button remains greyed out or validation fails, the cause is almost always one of the four conditions from the previous section. Apple’s error message is vague: go through the list in order.

The procedure on Mac

The path goes through the App Store, not System Settings.

1. Open the App Store, then click your name at the bottom of the sidebar.
2. Click Account Settings. You will be redirected to the account management page.
3. In the Country/Region section, click Change.
4. Select the country, accept the terms, enter payment and address.

The procedure from a browser

Useful when you have neither an iPhone nor a Mac at hand, for example from a PC.

1. Go to the Apple account management page and sign in.
2. Open the Payment & Shipping section.
3. Change the country of the billing address, then save.

This route changes the address but does not always switch the store associated with the account: check afterwards from an Apple device that the App Store country has followed.

What you lose, specifically

The change is not neutral, and the losses are not all recoverable.

The most painful loss is rarely financial: it is the disappearance of regional apps. A French banking app, a public transport app, a ticketing service: none of these exist on a Turkish or Indian store. You will no longer be able to update them, and reinstallation will become impossible.

Calculating the gain before committing

An account migration takes a solid hour, costs the remaining balance, and deprives you of apps. It is only worth it if the annual savings are significant, which depends entirely on what you pay.

Two subscriptions at €12 migrated to a store where they cost €3 yield about €216 per year. A single subscription at €6 yields less than €50: the effort is not worth it, especially considering the foreign exchange fees on your card, which absorb 2 to 3% of every payment outside the euro zone.

Our savings calculator does this math on your actual basket: check your subscriptions, it selects the cheapest country for each, applies bank fees, and displays the net gain over twelve months.

The uncomfortable question: what if I do not live in that country?

Let us be clear, because most guides on this subject are not.

Apple Media Services terms require that the account country matches your country of residence, and that your payment method is linked to it. Declaring a fictitious residence to obtain a lower rate is a violation of this contract. It is not a criminal offence in France, and no one has ever been prosecuted for it — but it is not “perfectly legal” either, as one often reads.

In practice, the risk is contractual and concerns your account:

• purchase suspension during a verification;
• account block in case of repeat offence, with loss of access to purchased apps;
• refusal of refunds on affected purchases.

On an Apple account hosting ten years of photos, messages, and purchases, the question is not “will I get caught” but “what do I lose if it happens.” The details, precedents, and less risky alternatives are in our guide on the risks of changing your region.

Alternatives without changing country

Before migrating an account, exhaust the levers that expose you to nothing.

• Subscribe on the web rather than in the app. The rate is often 15 to 30% lower, as the Apple commission is not passed on. This is the case for ChatGPT Plus as well as Netflix.
• Switch to annual billing. The discount is around 15 to 20% depending on the publisher.
• Move to a family or duo plan. On music and video, the cost per person drops dramatically.
• Take advantage of a real trip. If you live part of the year abroad, the country change becomes legitimate and risk-free.

These four levers combined often cover half the gap between the French price and the cheapest price in the world — without touching your account.