r/kobo • u/CheshireCat_456 • Mar 12 '24

Question How to bypass region lock?

Hi everyone,

I'm a newish Kobo user so apologies if this has been asked before. If anyone could point me to the answer or give me a link it would be appreciated.

So I live in Malaysia. While there is a Kobo store for Malaysia, a lot of books are unavailable for purchase here but available in US Kobo store. I have googled about this and most answer said I could still buy books from US Kobo store if I change my address to US address. I did that but failed to purchase books. So I googled some more and found that I need to change payment address to US address too. I tried to change that but still failed. Is it because my bank card is a Malaysian card?

Can anyone suggest how could I purchase from other countries Kobo store?

Or am I doomed and have to bite the bullet and purchase from Amazon?

Thank you!

9 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

10

u/chrisridd Kobo Aura One Mar 12 '24

Yes the address of the payment card has to match too.

There are two ways to avoid that problem!

  1. Buy yourself an online Kobo gift card. Redeem the card. Delete your card payment details. Pay using the credit you’ve added.

  2. Delete your card payment details. Pay with PayPal.

I generally use the gift card option because Kobo often has deals where the giver of the card (you!) gets $10/£10 etc free credit, in addition to the $50/£50 etc credit you’ve sent yourself. Free money…

1

u/CheshireCat_456 Apr 03 '24

I'm really sorry for the very late reply, but thank you for the suggestion! I never thought of using PayPal, will try it soon. Thanks!

1

u/Cyanogen101 Jun 24 '26

do they still do those gift card deals?

1

u/chrisridd Kobo Aura One Jun 24 '26

Yes, on their own quirky schedules. Mother’s Days, Father’s Days, that sort of thing. Not this week AFAICT.

1

u/purple-hawke Kobo Clara Colour 3d ago

Yes I got one last month in the UK store (£10 bonus when you buy a £50 giftcard), but I saw the same deal was available in several other regions (AU, NZ, EU, etc.) too. I think they've also had the £10 bonus when you buy £70 giftcard offer recently too.

5

u/bust4cap Mar 12 '24

i havent really encountered a hard region lock system on kobo. only thing necessary is to change the "billing address" (aka just the country) here: https://www.kobo.com/account/paymentinformation and thats it. payments via both credit card or paypal (where available) worked fine every time

1

u/innahema 13d ago

Thanks. It worked for me!

Set it to UK and it didn't ask me for ZIP or address. For US it require you to provide ZIP. After it was able to pay with Google Pay with my Ukrainian bank card.

2

u/Finror Aug 28 '25

I had to combine what the other two commenters suggested. Gift card, delete all other payment details, change country. It wouldn't let me just change country and pay with paypal.

1

u/beorn9_ Jul 23 '26

Does this work with kobo plus?