Here’s something that a few people have had to struggle with, no doubt. Many of us move around from time to time. Some of us move countries, whether you’re from Germany and move to China or to the US, or somewhere else. It’s part of life. And having to change your address on everything is a pain. But if you have a Google Merchant account, it’s even more of a pain. As you are unable to change the country of your Google account due to that. And if you close that merchant account, you still are unable to change the country of your Google account. Seems rather un-user friendly, right?
Now a Google Payments Merchant account is pretty popular. Especially for developers, who get paid for their app(s) through Google. In the settings for the Home Address, if you attempt to change your country, it pops up with an error message stating, “If you have a Google Payments Merchant account, you won’t be able to change your country.” So whether you move permanently or even temporarily, you are unable to change the country. Which is pretty unfortunate.
There is a “workaround”, and we put that in quotes because you’ll need to open a new account. And if you’ve bought a lot of apps, games, movies, TV Shows, or anything else, from the Google Play Store, that can be a nightmare. Nevermind having to start over with YouTube, Google+, and getting a new personal email (or even business email). It can really get frustrating. But it’s the only way to be able to change the country on your account, because once you are a merchant, you always are one. We’d recommend only doing this if you are planning to live in that new country for the foreseeable future. If you’re just there for a few years, it’s not worth the hassle.
It’s likely that Google has good reasoning for not allowing merchants to change their home country. Although they haven’t made it known. Perhaps if more people run into this issue, we might see Google change this rule and allow merchants to change their home country.