Clear remaining balance to change App Store

The article Change your Apple Account 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:

● Remove all your Apple Account balance using one of these two ways (if you use the first one you do NOT need to contact Apple):

- Add a credit or debit 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.

- Use the link in this article --> Check your Apple Account balance - Apple Support to contact Apple about removing account balance. Apple will keep the balance.

- If you cannot empty your account balance you will have to create a new Apple Account in your new country.

● Subscriptions

Make sure you have canceled all your subscriptions (see: If you want to cancel a subscription from Apple - Apple Support ) and wait for any memberships, pre-orders, movie rentals, or season passes to fully expire. Items will still be active until their expiration date. You need to contact Apple and request any ongoing items you have to be ended immediately if you do not want to wait until they expire naturally.

● Payment Methods.

In the first link above, Apple says: "Make sure that you have a payment method for your new country or region." Refer to the list in: Payment methods that you can use with your Apple Account - Apple Support Note that some payment methods in that list may not be acceptable to set as a payment method for country change purposes.; for example, account balance.

Here is where I challenge declarations made by other forum contributors that the payment method must come from the new country. Apple does not say that. The statement from Apple, and Apple referring to the link, to me only says that the broad payment type must be valid in the new country (e.g., mobile billing is not valid in all countries). I do not see anywhere where it says the specific payment method (e.g., the bank issuing a credit card) must originate from the new country. Apple through the years appears to have deliberately avoided making a simple, clear statement about this, which suggests to me they have more complex criteria other than it must be a payment method from the same country (e.g., the billing address has to be in the new country even if the card is from a different country). Still, using one from a financial institution in your new country may be 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 How to leave or remove a member from a Family Sharing group - Apple Support

● Read this support article If your Apple ID or other options are greyed out in Settings —> If you can't sign out due to restrictions, or your Apple Account is grayed out in Settings - Apple Support

For items where you need to contact Apple to resolve an issue, see if there are options for a live chat or telephone call at the bottom of this page --> Contact Apple Support - Apple Support Select your country. Not all countries have all options and telephone numbers tend to only work when calling from the same country.