I spend a lot of time in EU countries that I don’t live in, due to work travel, etc. I can’t purchase games when I’m traveling, because every time I try, I get a popup that says that because of the 2015 VAT regulations, my billing address and country of purchase need to match.

However, this popup is misleading: The 2015 regulations require two pieces of matching evidence to determine the VAT country – IP address is one piece of evidence that can be used, but there are several pieces of information that are also considered valid, such as country of credit card or bank account.

I already have a credit card and billing address on file from the same country, which meets the legal requirements for VAT determination, and is a much stronger set of evidence than the IP address of the country I happen to be visiting temporarily. This seems to be a problem that several people have already expressed frustrations with (although all of the requests have been archived).

I don’t have this problem on Steam or Google Play, and I’d love to keep using this platform. A couple of ways to possibly solve this problem:

1. Prioritize pieces of evidence – look for a credit card on file before checking for IP address.

2. Allow a user to manually specify the country, then ask them to manually supply two pieces of evidence (e.g. a bank account plus a credit card, or allow them to say “Always use my IP address” for one of the verifications)

Thanks for the help in improving the purchase experience!

why not use a VPN or prepaid card on that country.

Hey, thanks for the suggestions!

Prepaid cards are a ripoff, especially when I’m paying in dollars, not euros, and for purchases less than $5…for countries that I may only be a few days in.

You’re right, VPN is probably the way to go. But I’d really love to see this fixed – people shouldn’t need a VPN to make purchases, and I know I’m not the only one with this problem. I’d love to see this fixed.