How to change country in App store

Good grief, I got there in the end.

Apple support came back and said on a mobile device follow:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1311

You had summarised this but for me an important step was omitted. So I went to

Settings ---> Store and tapped on the field containing my Appleid. There I changed country, but I also had to sign out after that and then I think I also reconfirmed the change, and made sure to be out of the AppStore app while doing that. Then when going back into the the AppStore I was able to get the App I wanted. It's currently downloading.

The page HT1311 above talks about creating a new Appleid. That is not necessary.

Thanks for your help!

Just to clarify... It happens every time I try to change a country. I don't live in the US, but usually I use the US App Store because it contains more free apps, and I don't specify my payment details. When I want to purchase an app, however, I switch to the Israeli store (through my apple ID) and specify my payment details. That usually works. For some reason it stopped working and it's driving me crazy. So to summarize: when I try to switch to the Israeli store (from US) I get the same error code, and the same session has ended message. What a horrible user experience. I hope you can fix that soon (or alternatively, change you name to Microsoft). I suspect it all started after the new iOS update a few days ago. FYI! I live in Israel and have a valid Israeli address.

I think this might be part of the problem.

You cannot use a U.S. credit card in any other iTunes or App Store except in the U.S. store. That is how it works and you can't change that. You can only purchase from a particular country's store if you have a valid credit card that is registered to a legal address in that country, so you can't buy from the German Store with a U.S. credit card and you cannot buy in the U.S. store using any other credit card.

According to the "letter of the law" of the iTunes Store, you are not to purchase from a country other than the country in which you live. The reason being that you just might be trying to circumvent government restrictions, licensing or copyright laws if you buy from another country. If Apple is not allowed to sell content of a certain type in that country for these reasons, they do not want you skirting around the issue this way.

So getting back to the initial issue, when you "just for the heck to it" decided to use the German App Store - but didn't really purchase anything - and then went back to the U.S. App Store because your credit card wasn't working, you gummed up the whole works. Not very technical I realize, but I do think that might be part of the problem.

You might be better off starting all over again now, by going to Settings>General>Reset>Erase all content and settings - which will totally erase the iPad - and then start all over again.

There might be some truth to that, but I personally have no credit card associated with the account I was trying to change. And I had never before had my account associated with the country to which I was trying to switch.

My suggestion was simply that this problem could be occurring for less justifiable reasons. But by all means, Den B. should consider your advice. It might be right for his particular situation which prompted that error.

Although, before he erases all purchases, I'd recommend he or she try to switch countries from iTunes. It worked for me, even though I was getting the same error on my iPhone.

besjbo wrote:

Although, before he erases all purchases, I'd recommend he or she try to switch countries from iTunes. It worked for me, even though I was getting the same error on my iPhone.

I agree with this. But, if the purchase are from another country store and he has issues getting back into that store, he will not be able to update the apps any longer and at some point, the apps could become useless if another iOS update is required in order to use those apps.

and, he also stated this ....

"I've been trying again since last week. How long am I supposed to keep trying to start using my new iPad????"

and that says to me that he hasn't downloaded anything yet. Purchased apps can be downloaded again for free as long as you use the same Apple ID that you bought with as well no matter what he does.

Same problem here too.

In settings>Itunes and app stores I'm set to UK store.

In iTunes on my iMac I'm set to UK store.

When I follow the featured tab to my ID im in the UK store, but everytime I go to download I'm in the US store and cannot download without switching to the UK store!!!

Ok, same here... Already two days I am trying to switch my apple store account back to US store. I was downloading some magazines from App Store and when I downloaded some magazines that are actually from Croatian market since then I can't update my other apps that are actually from US store... So now I have realized that in settings of my apple id is Croatian store and when I change it back to US and after submitting I get and note YOUR SESSION HAS TIMED OUT. PLEASE TRY AGAIN. ERROR CODE 5107 and it repeats all the time... I have tried almost everything: on laptop, my iPod, throu iTunes even to make a new apple id and nothing till now still couldn't change the App Store region... So please, if anyone has an solution or at least an advice will be very helpful... because this has become a very annoying issue for me...

A couple of more thoughts here.

If you have an used balance on a gift card for one county's store, you can't switch stores until that balance has been used.

Try downloading a free app and see if that redirects you to the store that you just tried to sign into.

I tried that yesterday.

I'm certainly in the UK store, I can download free apps from the UK store, all pricing is in £ but it still gives the same error on updates -:this id is not valid in the US store, please switch to the UK store.

Clicking links from sites that direct to UK apps opens the dialogue, not available in the US store, do you want to switch to the UK store? Clicking confirms I'm in the UK store, I can download the apps, but I still get the same error for updates.

I also get the ERROR CODE 5107 when trying to follow the instructions everywhere.

I haven't use any gift card nor balance from gift card that belong to any store. Most of my apps are FREE and from US store but now I can't download anymore free apps because for most of apps there comes out an information just before installation runs that I can use apps that are from US store Reason: because I'm assign to Croatian store, how come I don't honestly know but I would like to switch back to US store... But I don't know how because every time when I tried it I didn't succeed and worst of all is because I can't even updated apps that I have... Because they have been installed when my account was registered in US store... So now it is really depressing because apple even charged me $1 for changing my payment info wich I thought was maybe one of the reasons why I can't switch back to US store but it wasn't still I'm without solution

Not sure if this will help... I'm on IPAD in the UK and was directed to the US Store on a link. Got stuck in the US and couldnt buy anything etc as I'm a UK User. Finally worked out how to get back to the UK store. Log Out on the Home Screen, then when you log back in you will be forced to go back to your home store. Phew!

I had the exact same problem. Here's the solution I got from App Tech Folks.

CHANGING THE COUNTRY FROM PHONE WILL NOT WORK - he didn't say it but that's what I found out.

Open iTunes on your Mac/PC

Go to iTunes Store -> Sign in to the ID for which you want to change the country.

Go to iTunes Store AGAIN -> View my Apple ID.

You should now see your account information open up

Click on change Country or Region here and change the country

Click on Done at the bottom of the page.

Sign Out of your apple ID from ITunes store in ITunes on ure Mac/PC.

next step is very important.

In your phone:

Settings -> iTunes and App Store -> Click on Apple ID -> Click on Sign Out

Do the same process again and sign-in to your apple ID again by

Settings -> iTunes and App Store -> Click on Apple ID -> Sign In

Now to check your country in the App Store Now:

Settings -> iTunes and App Store -> Click on Apple ID -> View Apple ID

VIOLA! Your country should be updated now.

Hi,

I went to setting clicked on iTunes and App Store, clicked on the apple I.D. I wanted, it asked for my password, and I was switched back from the Canadian to the u.s. store. I have accounts for both.