Changing Apple ID country with Apple One and Family Sharing

The article https://support.apple.com/HT201389 describes how to change your Apple ID country or region, and the requirements and results of doing this.

You may encounter various issues and here is how to deal with them:

● Remove all your Apple Account balance using one of these two ways (if you use the first one you do NOT need to contact Apple):

- Add a credit or debit card to your account and buy items (not subscriptions) just in excess of your remaining balance. This will use all the balance and any excess will get charged to the card.

- Use the link in this article --> https://support.apple.com/119902 to contact Apple about removing account balance. Apple will keep the balance.

If you cannot empty your account balance you will have to create a new Apple Account in your new country.

● Subscriptions

Make sure all subscriptions have been canceled (see: https://support.apple.com/HT202039 ) and have fully expired. If you do not want to wait, you will need to contact Apple and request any ongoing items you have to be ended immediately.

In the legal documents: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/us/terms.html#:~:text=When%20your section I you will find, "When your Paid Subscription to any Service or Content ends, you will lose access to any functionality or Content of that Service that requires a Paid Subscription." Make sure you have downloaded any data you have stored in iCloud and any media purchases you have made. Unfortunately you are likely to lose Apple Music playlists. Any apps you have currently will remain on your devices but you may not be able to update them or re-download them in your new country unless they are also available there.

● Payment Methods.

In the first link above, Apple says: "You might need to enter a valid payment method for your new country or region.” Refer to the list in: https://support.apple.com/111741 Note that some payment methods in that list may not be acceptable to set as a payment method for country change purposes; for example, account balance. While Apple has through the years avoided making any unequivocal statement about the country origins of such a payment method, using one from a financial institution in your new country may be the easiest way to ensure you don’t run into problems.

● Pending purchases and refunds

If you have pending purchases, or refunds in the process of being returned to you, you will have to wait until these clear. You can canel a pre-order (see: https://support.apple.com/118414 )

● Leave or disband any Family Sharing groups.

Refer to https://support.apple.com/HT201081

For items where you need to contact Apple to resolve an issue, see if there are options for a live chat or telephone call at the bottom of this page --> https://support.apple.com/HT201232 Select your country. Not all countries have all options and telephone numbers tend to only work when calling from the same country.

Setting up a new account won't get around all this. For example, all Family Sharing members have to have their accounts set to the same country and while you can now transfer subscriptions from one account to another, they would have to to be set to the same country.

I know this isn't ideal but it is the way Apple has things set up. If you want Apple to know your thoughts, click on this link for Apple products feedback links --> https://www.apple.com/feedback/#:~:text=Product%20Feedback

Apple may not respond but your comment will be read.

My understanding is your data will not survive the transition. I know that once you cancel an Apple Music subscription anything done with that service disappears pretty much instantly. I am just extrapolating that to services covered by Apple One. If you were not changing countries then it is possible iCloud data might be retained. If you cancel an iCloud+ subscription then Apple may not delete data immediately, they just won't let you update it or add more (though eventually they may delete the data). However, Apple has its country services completely separated and I don't know if your iCloud data would still be with Apple but only in your old country's iCloud.

I don't know for certain, never having changed country when Apple Accounts existed. I guess it is a matter of how much do you want to risk things by not backing up as much as possible?

Thanks - but this does not help me understand what happens to my data. Lets say I am successful in getting it all cancelled and it expires on the 24th of the month. On the 25th I go into my account and change my country and then re-subscribe to Apple One (remember Apple+ is still active as apparently I do not need to cancel that to change country). Will my data in Music and Photos still be there?