Many apps and services on your Android are geo-restricted and it has been like that for years. And this doesn’t apply solely to Google apps as many third-party apps will appear in the Play Store only in certain countries or regions. That’s why many users encounter the “This item isn’t available in your country” prompt on the Play Store when they try to download apps. Luckily, there’s a way to overcome this and get 99% of geo-restricted apps in no time.
Table of contents:
- Check if you can change country/region
- Clear data from Google Play and associated services
- Sideload the app via an APK
How to get Play Store apps that are not available in my country?
If you want to get Play Store apps and items that are not available in your country, there are a few things you can do. If you are certain that the item (be that an app, book, TV show, or game) is supported in your region, check region settings and reset Google Play Store and associated services.
In the end, you can always sideload the app via an APK and be done with it. Learn everything below.
1. Check if you can change country/region
Meddling with country/region settings in Google Play Store is no easy feat. Because of the whole Google Pay integration, Google ensured that your region can’t be changed as easily as one would expect. Some suggest using a VPN but we tried it and it doesn’t work.
Not to mention that, because the location is tied to your payment methods, security is paramount. In addition, hiding an IP address won’t work because Google’s services tie in with GPS/Location Services. Using a VPN for various other tasks is welcome but not for this particular problem.
What you can do, and only if you moved countries and have a payment method registered in that new country, is change the region in Play Store settings. Now, have in mind that you can change country only once per year. Also, even if you gain access to an item unavailable in your country, you can lose access to something else. This applies to Google Play Balance, too.
Nonetheless, if you moved countries and have a new payment method to provide, you can change your country by following these steps:
- Open a browser (on your Android or PC) and navigate to Google Pay webpage.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Edit next to the Country/Region.
- Select “Create new profile“.
- Add a new payment method from the new country and follow further steps.
- It takes 48 hours for Google Pay to change your country/region.
2. Clear data from Google Play and associated services
If you already changed your country but, for some reason, don’t have access to apps, games, books, TV shows, or movies that should be available in your country, try resetting Google Play services. In addition, clear data from a few associated services.
Here’s what you need to do to reset Google Play Store on your Android:
- Open Settings.
- Select Apps. Expand All apps.
- Tap on the 3-dots menu (or Sort menu on Samsung devices) and choose to show system processes.
- Now, first open Play Store from the list of available apps.
- Tap Storage.
- Clear data and get back to the Apps list.
- Open Google Play Services and then open Storage.
- Tap Manage Storage and clear all data.
- Do the same for Google Services Framework.
- Restart your device, open the Play Store, and check if you can access the item that wasn’t available.
3. Sideload the app via an APK
In the end, Google Play Store is only one of the means to get Android apps. There are a few open-source Stores out there, like F-Droid, so there’s that. But, the main thing is that almost every app on the Play Store is available as an APK on various websites. We default to APK Mirror for years but you can use any other APK aggregate.
We covered everything related to APKs in our article about installing apps from unknown sources on Android, so make sure to check it out. What we want to do is download an installation file of the app that you want to install and it’s not available in the Play Store. Just navigate to APK Mirror and search for the app. Download the latest version, as explained in the Netflix article, install it, and you should be good to go.
That should do it. Thank you for reading and don’t forget to tell us whether these steps were helpful or not in the comments section below. Hopefully, you better understand why this error appears and how to tackle it.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in February 2022. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
