Apple App Store Geo-blocking
• 165 words • 1 min • updated
⚠️ This post is over one year old. It may no longer be up to date or relevant. Opinions may have changed.
Apple Accounts are tied to a specific country. You can have one and only one country associated with an account at any given time.
This is a problem whenever certain apps are restricted to only certain countries (geo-blocking).
For example, an app from a bank or a financial broker may be made available only in the country wherein it operates, thereby completely ignoring the existence and needs of expats.
How do you know in which countries certain apps are made available? Here’s one way:
- Brazil: https://www.apple.com/br/search/
- Canada: https://www.apple.com/ca/search/
- Germany: https://www.apple.com/de/search/
- USA: https://www.apple.com/us/search/
Wanna see examples? Try searching for these apps in different stores1:
- Commerzbank is only available in Germany.
- MEI is only available in Brazil.
- Venmo is only available in the USA.
- WealthSimple is only available in Canada.
You can change the country associated with your App Store by following Apple’s official documentation.