Why are past purchases no longer showing after I change country of my Apple ID?

This is by design.

A developer lists an app for one or more markets and when you lose past purchases, that indicates that that app was available in the old market and no longer is available in the new market.

Have a look on the site, there are several threads on people deciding to switch countries or keep an old account.

One is simpler and potentially costs more, the other costs more time, but you keep access to all purchases, past, present and future on two accounts.

  • I want to change the country on my app store account and I am having some problems?
  • Restoring past purchases from different country
  • Do I need to repurchase apps if I moved countries?

Also - the related section to the right should have several more likely threads to help.


Ok, here's what I have learnt about purchases in iTunes App store after Apple ID's country switch by now (from my own experience (same ID, different country - Russia to USA)):

  1. You won't lose any app you purchased before the switch, but
  2. You won't have any of them in your 'purchased' list wherever you check it (iTunes, iOS,...),
  3. You'll be able to update any of them for free: (a) manually redownloading it in iTunes, as soon as you know the update have happen (it will only pop up with something like 'You've purchased it before and now it's free'); (b) updating normally from within App Store App on any iOS device where the app in question is installed.

(Just a wee tip: you can load an App like AppShopper with information about Apps you have and it will give you notification every time it's been updated)

Hopefully it will help someone