So i moved out to a different country a long time ago and still not able to change the region of my account, without changing the region i cannot add a credit card, and without adding a credit card i cannot install apps.
You can imagine how frustrating this is.
iPhone 15, iOS 17
What's actually frustrating is you omit to provide any information about why you cannot change country. ;-) Any error messages?
The article Change your Apple ID country or region - Apple Support describes how to change your Apple ID country or region, and the requirements and results of doing this.
You may encounter various issues and here is how to deal with them:
● Subscriptions
Make sure you have canceled all your subscriptions (see: If you want to cancel a subscription from Apple - Apple Support ). Wait for any memberships, pre-orders, movie rentals, or season passes to complete. Items will still be active until their expiration date. You need to contact Apple and request any ongoing items you have be ended immediately if you do not want to wait until they expire naturally.
● Remove all your Apple Account balance
- In the main change country article Apple only proposes a single way for you to clear your balance. That is to contact them and ask them to keep it. Apple offers this specific link for that service --> https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=kbase&PGF=PGF63005&category_id=SC0998&symptom_id=20198
- Another still viable way is to add a credit or debt card as a payment method to your Apple ID and buy items just in excess of your remaining Apple ID balance. This will use up all the balance and any excess will get charged to the card, leaving nothing in your account.
● From the first link above: "Make sure that you have a payment method for your new country or region." Refer to: Payment methods that you can use with your Apple ID - Apple Support Note that some in that list may not be acceptable to set as a payment method.; for example, account balance. The statement from Apple, and its referring to the link, to me just says that if you were using a payment method in your old country that is not listed in the new country too then you need a new payment method. I do not see anywhere where it says the payment method must be from the same country. I go by what Apple actually says in its online documentation. They appear to deliberately avoid making a simple, clear statement which suggests to me they have more complex criteria other than it must be a payment method from the same country. If it says a method is not valid then you need to try another one until you find one that is. Still, often using one from your new country is the easiest way to ensure you don’t run into problems.
● Pending purchases and refunds
If you have pending purchases, or refunds in the process of being returned to you, you will have to wait until these clear.
● Leave or disband any Family Sharing groups.
Refer to Leave Family Sharing - Apple Support
● Read this support article If your Apple ID or other options are greyed out in Settings —> If your Apple ID is greyed out in Settings - Apple Support
For items where you need to contact Apple to resolve an issue:
Click here ➞ Choose your country or region - Official Apple Support
Select your country (if you do not see your country, also look for "other" regions; e.g., "Other Africa"), then "Choose a product". Click the "show" item under each category for more selections. If you don't see one that handles your issue then keep experimenting with selections until you reach one that gets you a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.
or:
See a list of Apple phone numbers around the world. Click here --> Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support
What's actually frustrating is you omit to provide any information about why you cannot change country. ;-) Any error messages?
The article Change your Apple ID country or region - Apple Support describes how to change your Apple ID country or region, and the requirements and results of doing this.
You may encounter various issues and here is how to deal with them:
● Subscriptions
Make sure you have canceled all your subscriptions (see: If you want to cancel a subscription from Apple - Apple Support ). Wait for any memberships, pre-orders, movie rentals, or season passes to complete. Items will still be active until their expiration date. You need to contact Apple and request any ongoing items you have be ended immediately if you do not want to wait until they expire naturally.
● Remove all your Apple Account balance
- In the main change country article Apple only proposes a single way for you to clear your balance. That is to contact them and ask them to keep it. Apple offers this specific link for that service --> https://getsupport.apple.com/?caller=kbase&PGF=PGF63005&category_id=SC0998&symptom_id=20198
- Another still viable way is to add a credit or debt card as a payment method to your Apple ID and buy items just in excess of your remaining Apple ID balance. This will use up all the balance and any excess will get charged to the card, leaving nothing in your account.
● From the first link above: "Make sure that you have a payment method for your new country or region." Refer to: Payment methods that you can use with your Apple ID - Apple Support Note that some in that list may not be acceptable to set as a payment method.; for example, account balance. The statement from Apple, and its referring to the link, to me just says that if you were using a payment method in your old country that is not listed in the new country too then you need a new payment method. I do not see anywhere where it says the payment method must be from the same country. I go by what Apple actually says in its online documentation. They appear to deliberately avoid making a simple, clear statement which suggests to me they have more complex criteria other than it must be a payment method from the same country. If it says a method is not valid then you need to try another one until you find one that is. Still, often using one from your new country is the easiest way to ensure you don’t run into problems.
● Pending purchases and refunds
If you have pending purchases, or refunds in the process of being returned to you, you will have to wait until these clear.
● Leave or disband any Family Sharing groups.
Refer to Leave Family Sharing - Apple Support
● Read this support article If your Apple ID or other options are greyed out in Settings —> If your Apple ID is greyed out in Settings - Apple Support
For items where you need to contact Apple to resolve an issue:
Click here ➞ Choose your country or region - Official Apple Support
Select your country (if you do not see your country, also look for "other" regions; e.g., "Other Africa"), then "Choose a product". Click the "show" item under each category for more selections. If you don't see one that handles your issue then keep experimenting with selections until you reach one that gets you a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.
or:
See a list of Apple phone numbers around the world. Click here --> Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support
First, cancel your subscriptions and wait until the end of the subscription period.
Second, make a request to zero out any remaining balance on your account by contacting Customer Support by phone or chat:
—Then—
Click ▶︎ Change Region. 🌐
Good luck! 👋🏼😉
Apple has been increasingly making it difficult outside of regions where it does not provide support. However, presumably your device is still set to a region where they do provide support. Can you try an online method? If that does not work then please tell us what error messages you see. Remember, we are just users like you. I don't have any reason or way to change my country setting so we are just working on what people tell us and what Apple says (which is not a lot). I get the impression they have recently changed options, making it harder to get live-person support unless you are actually physically present in that country. This seems to even apply in cases where a Apple does business but doesn't offer a live support team. Understand that this is as frustrating for us trying to help you as it is for you!
It really would help if we knew which country (countries) was involved.
Go to https://getsupport.apple.com/?s=n , enter “empty balance” or “zero balance” in the search line, press enter to search, then on the next page select “Clear Apple ID balance”. On the next page select a chat or telephone call option. IF you can get a real person then ask them to help you and/or transfer you to another real person who can.
Try this:
Go to https://getsupport.apple.com/?s=n
Check your country at the bottom right of the page. Mine says "United States". If yours does not (it should not), click on it and then select United States for yours. Peru is in the list but I just tried the search on Peru's page and it kept giving me no valid results (as far as I could tell it was simply a page in Spanish and did not have any country designation in the URL).
Do the search as I suggested before. Do not select phone call because international calls don't work. If you're lucky you will get a chat session. The problem then will be it will be with somebody in the USA. Try to get them to help you. They may not be able to directly but at least you will be talking to somebody from Apple.
If they have a solution then please let me know!
Ask Apple where you do live about this. I provided contact links earlier. Even though they probably can't do anything to your account when set to a different country they should be able to give you some indication as to what that message means.
Your subscriptions have fully expired? Not just canceled but expired?
Nothing else in the list I provided?
Was Family Sharing used with this ID? I seem to recall a situation where some relic setting prevented a user from changing country.
What did Apple say when you called them?
Thanks for your help. Sadly there's no search field in the https://getsupport.apple.com/?s=n page.
Regarding countries involved, account country is Argentina, and currently living in Peru.
I'm also thinking if simply creating a brand new apple id?
I asked to have your image removed because it had personal information (your name and email address).
Was your country setting at the bottom right Argentina or Peru?
Apple's software now work very hard to only let you get support in your own country and you have to keep on trying things to trick it. It is getting good at spotting those tricks. :-( The problem is, there are cases like yours (yours is the third one I have seen in the past 24 hours).
It's the typical error of "You cannot change your country/region at this moment"
I don't have an active subscription.
Balance is 0.
How do i call them? i don't live the US.
They expired in may yes.
Again, i already did all that.
And can't contact apple support, it says Message Apple is not supported in your region.
You don't see this?
I don't, this is what i see:
[Edited by Moderator]
Can't change country/region
