Friday, 27 September 2013

Updating your Google account's country after moving

One of the first things I wanted to do after moving was to switch my Google account's country to USA so I could play around with the US-only features on products like Google Now.

After searching for a while I couldn't really find much other than people saying to call them, so I did. Turns out it's all based on the billing address on Google Wallet, here is the process you follow to update your region without waiting.

  1. Sign into your Google Wallet

  2. Add a new card whose billing address is in the desired country

  3. Open the Play Store and go an item available for purchase

  4. Click through until you hit the "Accept and buy" screen, you don't need to press this

  5. Close the Play Store and clear data for the Google Play Store app on your phone/tablet or clear your browser cache

Your account should have been updated to the new country. If you have any other apps that have country-specific features then be sure to clear their data too.