How to change location on YouTube TV

Although YouTube TV is supposed to be an alternative to cable TV and its various limitations, the online streaming service has its own annoying restrictions. Namely, you won’t have access to some of your favorite channels if you try to watch service while traveling outside your Home Area. For example, if your home area is in California, you won’t be able to watch California-exclusive content when viewing YouTube TV in New York or any other state.

Thankfully, I found a way to change the location virtually and retain access to home area channels anywhere. An effective way is to use a VPN, but you can also adjust your YouTube TV location settings. Read on to learn more about these methods.

Change YouTube TV location with a VPN

My recommended way to change your YouTube TV location is by using a VPN. In short, it will reroute your connection through another region and change your IP address, making YouTube TV believe you’re in your home area or somewhere else entirely. Here’s how to do that:

1. Subscribe to a reliable VPN with plenty of US servers. I recommend NordVPN, currently 74% OFF
2. Install the VPN app on your preferred viewing device
3. Connect to a US server in your home state, or somewhere else to bypass local geo-blocking
4. Open YouTube TV and enjoy your usual channels while traveling!

Watch YouTube TV anywhere with NordVPN

YouTube TV home area workaround

YouTube TV recognizes your ZIP code as your home area. It collects this information when you create your account and input your home address for service verification. This is important for YouTube TV because it only provides access to shows that are available in that service region.

If you expect to bypass geo-restrictions on YouTube TV by changing your home area, note that it’s only allowed twice per year. Additionally, the service might change your home area automatically if you frequently access YouTube TV from a device or location different from your initial setup location.

Here’s how to manually change the YouTube TV home area on different devices.

Change YouTube TV home area on PC, Android, or iOS:

1. Open YouTube TV on your browser or computer
2. Click on your profile picture
3. Go to the Settings menu
4. Click Area
5. Select Home Area
6. Click Update

How to update the current playback area

The playback area shows where you’re currently watching YouTube TV, while the home area shows your set living location. You can easily change the current playback area in your YouTube TV profile on a smart TV, mobile device, or even a browser. Crucially, you can update your current playback area as many times as you want, but you must be in the location you're specifying.

Here’s how to update YouTube TV’s current playback area on mobile devices and web browsers:

1. Launch YouTube TV on your device
2. Click on your profile picture and head to Location
3. Press Update near the Current playback area
4. Optional: verify YouTube TV location by using your smart TV’s location

If you’re using a smart TV, you’ll have to add a few extra steps to the whole process:

1. Open the YouTube TV app
2. Click on your profile picture
3. Choose Settings, then click Area
4. Click Update in the Current Playback area menu
5. Visit tv.youtube.com/verify on your mobile phone
6. Give the site permission to use your phone’s location to update your current playback area

How to verify playback area on your device

With a VPN, you can access YouTube TV from outside the US, but you cannot access region-locked content. To bypass this obstacle, you can use GPS spoofing software to verify your playback area. Here’s how to do it:

1. Connect to a VPN in your desired location
2. Use GPS spoofing software to change your GPS location – the goal is to make your GPS location the same as the VPN server’s IP location
3. Open your YouTube TV app on your mobile device
4. Tap your profile icon and select Location
5. Tap Update and follow the on-screen instructions

Are there location restrictions on YouTube TV?

As hinted before, YouTube TV isn’t immune to some of cable TV’s well-known geographical limitations. For example, as the screenshot below confirms, YouTube TV is only available in the US.

Secondly, you can only view channels broadcast in your local area, meaning you don’t get any extra content by default. Instead, you have to purchase various add-ons if you want to, for example, watch out-of-market NFL games. There are also add-ons for other entertainment-focused channels, such as Max and Paramount+.

Overall, YouTube TV is almost as restrictive as conventional cable TV, but at least you can easily unlock more content through add-ons or location-changing with a VPN.

Other ways to change YouTube TV location

You might be tempted to try other ways of changing your YouTube TV location. After all, high-quality YouTube TV VPNs are paid, and there’s no harm in testing some free alternatives. We did some in-house tests so you wouldn’t have to, and here are the results.

Ultimately, premium VPN service alternatives like proxies and free VPNs were ineffective at changing YouTube TV’s location. They lack the necessary technical capabilities and IP address variety to trick YouTube TV adequately. Furthermore, they provide ultra-slow speeds, which lead to low-quality and laggy video. Plus, I should point out that sometimes even paid VPNs don’t always work with YouTube TV.

Conclusion

Changing your YouTube TV location is an excellent way to get the most out of this streaming service. However, the platform does its best to ensure users can’t easily bypass its geographical restrictions and home area limitations. At best, you can change your home location several times per year, but that’s not necessarily suitable for everyone.

As such, I recommend giving a VPN a shot. They can reroute your entire web traffic and change your IP address to alter your YouTube TV location, thus unlocking geo-restricted channels while traveling anywhere in the US or abroad. NordVPN delivered the best results during my tests, but you can also consider Surfshark if you want something more affordable.

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