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 is unavailable 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 unavailable in my country?
If you want to get Play Store apps and items that are uvailable 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. Change Your Country/Region Settings
Altering your country/region settings in Google Play Store can be challenging due to Google Pay integration and security measures. Using a VPN to change your location is not effective for this purpose.
However, if you’ve moved countries and registered a payment method in your new country, you can change the region in the Play Store settings. Note that you can change your country only once per year and doing so may affect access to certain items and your Google Play Balance.
To change your country in Play Store settings, follow these steps:
- Open a browser (on your Android device or PC) and visit the Google Pay webpage.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Edit next to the Country/Region.
- Select “Create a new payments profile.”
- Add a new payment method from the new country and follow the additional steps.
- Wait for 48 hours for Google Pay to update your country/region.
2. Reset Google Play Store and Associated Services
If you’ve already changed your country but still can’t access certain apps, try resetting Google Play services and clearing data from associated services.
To reset Google Play Store on your Android device:
- Open Settings.
- Select Apps, then expand All apps.
- Tap on the 3-dots menu (or Sort menu on Samsung devices) and choose to show system processes.
- Open Play Store, then tap Storage.
- Clear data and return to the Apps list.
- Open Google Play Services, tap Storage, then 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 unavailable item.
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 uvailable 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.
