You're packing boxes, booking flights, sorting visas. Your Spotify library is the last thing on your mind. Then you land in your new country, open the app, and half your songs are grayed out.
Your playlists are still there. Your liked songs haven't been deleted. But some of them won't play anymore. The catalog you've been listening to for years is tied to the country you just left, and the licensing doesn't always follow you across borders.
How Spotify handles country changes
Spotify ties your account to a country based on your IP address and payment method. What happens when you move depends on whether you're paying for Premium or not.
If you're paying for Premium, you have more time. Your catalog stays tied to your payment method's country, not your physical location. US credit card, moved to Germany? You keep the US catalog as long as that card stays active. Travel all you want.
The switch only happens when you go into your account settings and change your country to a new one with a local payment method. That kicks in at the start of your next billing cycle, not right away.
Free accounts get 14 days. Spotify detects your new location by IP, and after two weeks abroad, playback stops. No warning countdown, no gradual restriction. One day it works, the next it doesn't. You have to update your country settings to keep using the service.
The 14-day lockout on free accounts
This catches a lot of people off guard. You move, you're busy setting up your life, and then Spotify tells you that you can only use it abroad for 14 days and your time is up.
The fix is simple but you can't undo it: go to your account settings, update your country to where you are now, and your account switches to the new region's catalog. You can listen again, but you're on a different version of Spotify now. Different music availability.
The catch is that Spotify only lets you change your country when it detects you're actually in that country via your IP address. You can't pre-set it before you travel. And once you change it, the old catalog is gone.
What you keep and what goes gray
Nothing in your library gets deleted after a country change. It's all still there. But individual tracks can become unplayable if they're not licensed in your new region.
| Content | What happens |
|---|---|
| Playlists | Stay on your account, but tracks not available in the new region go gray |
| Liked songs | Stay in your library, but unlicensed ones become unplayable |
| Followed artists | No change |
| Saved albums | Stay, but individual tracks may go gray |
| Podcasts | Most stay, but some have regional restrictions |
| Offline downloads | Wiped - you'll need to re-download everything |
| Listening history | Stays but stops influencing your recommendations for greyed content |
| Wrapped data | Stays on your account, not affected |
How much this hurts depends on where you're coming from. US to Western Europe? You'll barely notice. Japan, South Korea, or Brazil to somewhere else? You could lose a lot of local artists and regional exclusives that were never licensed outside those markets.
The Family Plan problem
If you're on a Spotify Premium Family plan, moving countries is a mess.
The plan owner can't change the plan's country while it's active. The only option is to cancel the entire plan, update the country, re-subscribe, and re-invite every member. And all members have to be in the same country as the plan owner. If your family is split across countries, nobody can join the plan.
If you're a member (not the owner) and you move, you'll get kicked off when the plan owner's location check runs. You'll need your own subscription in your new country.
Keep your old catalog with a VPN
If you want to keep listening to your original country's catalog after moving, a VPN is the most common solution. Connect to a server in your home country and Spotify sees your old IP. Same catalog, same payment method, nothing changes on your account.
A good VPN with servers in your home country works well for this - fast enough for streaming, and it keeps Spotify from detecting your new location. You avoid the 14-day lockout on free accounts and keep your full catalog on Premium.
This works best as a bridge while you're settling in. Some people keep it running long-term, but it does mean your Spotify account stays tied to your old country's pricing and payment method.
Worth knowing: Spotify's terms of service say you should access the version of the service offered in your country of residence. Using a VPN to maintain an old region is common and widely done, but it's technically against their terms.
When a new account makes more sense
Sometimes the cleaner move is to start fresh with a new Spotify account in your new country. This makes sense if:
- Your old payment method is expiring or you can't maintain it from abroad
- You want local pricing (Spotify Premium costs way more in some countries than others)
- You want the new region's catalog, including local artists and regional content
- You're on a free account and don't want to deal with the 14-day lockout
The trade-off is real. A new account means losing your listening history, your Wrapped data from every previous year, and all the algorithm training that makes your Discover Weekly and Daily Mixes actually good. That rebuilds over a few weeks of listening, but years of data is gone.
Your playlists, liked songs, followed artists, saved albums, and podcasts don't have to go with it. You can move all of that to the new account.
How to transfer your library to a new account
If you're making the switch, Tuneferry moves your entire library from your old account to the new one.
- Go to tuneferry.com
- Connect your old account (the one in your previous country)
- Connect your new account
- Pick what to transfer
- Hit transfer
Playlists come over with their track order. Liked songs, followed artists, saved albums, and podcasts all transfer. The whole thing runs in your browser and takes about 5-10 minutes.
Tracks that are grayed out on your old account might be available on the new one if they're licensed in your new country, and vice versa. You keep everything that's available in either region.
Back up before you do anything
Whether you're using a VPN, changing your country settings, or creating a new account, back up your library first.
Tuneferry's backup mode saves everything to a .tuneferry file on your computer - playlists, liked songs, artists, albums, podcasts. The file lives on your device. If anything goes wrong with the region change, the VPN, or the new account, you can restore from the backup to any Spotify account.
It takes about 30 seconds. Do it before you fly.
Common questions
Will I lose my playlists if I change my country on Spotify? No. Your playlists stay on your account. Individual tracks within them may go gray if they're not licensed in the new region, but the playlists themselves don't disappear.
Can I change my Spotify country back? Yes, but only when Spotify detects you're physically in that country again (via IP). You can't freely toggle between countries from the same location.
Does Spotify ban you for using a VPN? No widespread reports of bans for VPN usage on personal accounts. Spotify's terms do say you should access the service from your country of residence, so it's a gray area, but enforcement has been essentially zero.
What happens to my Spotify Wrapped if I change countries? Your previous Wrapped data stays on your account. Future Wrapped stats will reflect listening on whichever account and region you're using going forward.
How much does a library transfer cost? $6.99 for 30 days of access to Tuneferry. One-time payment, not a subscription. You can transfer one playlist free to test it first.
Related guides
- How to transfer your Spotify library to a new account - The full step-by-step transfer guide.
- How to back up your Spotify library to a file - Save a copy before making any changes.
- Spotify Family Plan ending? How to keep your music - Moving often means leaving a family plan too.
Plan your move
If you're relocating and want to keep your music, back up your library before you leave. If you end up needing a new account in your new country, Tuneferry moves everything over in minutes.