You probably think that the price of your Netflix subscription depends on the country you live in or stream from. That's not entirely true.
Netflix's library changes depending on where you're streaming from. For example, people in France see different shows than people in the US. The content you see doesn't depend on how much you pay – it only depends on where you are.
People who have traveled have already experienced this. You may have even used a VPN to watch shows that are not available in your country.
I originally subscribed to Netflix in France and later moved to Taiwan. The content presented to me on Netflix was different, but my subscription was the same.
Then, I changed my billing location to Taiwan and the price of my subscription dropped from €17.99 to €12.04 per month.
That made me curious.
How much does Netflix cost in other countries?
Which country has the cheapest Netflix plan?
Can I save money by changing my billing location?
Let's find out!
The data
(data last updated on Jan 27, 2023)
Netflix's prices are listed on their website. Each country has its own page. I scraped these 249 country pages and extracted the prices and currencies of each plan. Prices not in USD haven been converted to USD.
There are 249 countries, minus 4 where Netflix is not available: China, North Korea, Russia and Syria
Here's the full table with all the countries and prices:
Netflix plans
Netflix offers 5 different plans:
- Mobile: stream on 1 mobile at a time
- Basic with ads: stream in HD on 1 device at a time, ad-supported plan
- Basic: stream in HD on 1 device at a time
- Standard: stream in Full HD on 2 devices at a time
- Premium: stream in Ultra HD on 4 devices at a time
Most countries have the last three plans, so let's talk about the first two.
Mobile plan
The mobile plan allows Netflix to reach more people in emerging markets. It targets countries where most people own only a cell phone.
Here are the countries where the mobile plan is available:
Ad-supported plan
Netflix's latest experiment is a lower-priced ad-supported plan.
Only 12 countries have access to this plan so far. I assume it's because the CPM is higher in these countries.
Here are the countries where the ad-supported plan is available:
Cheapest and most expensive countries
Cheapest plans
- Mobile
- Pakistan: $1.00/mo.
- Basic with ads
- Brazil: $3.73/mo.
- Basic
- Pakistan: $1.80/mo.
- Standard
- Pakistan: $3.19/mo.
- Premium
- Pakistan: $4.39/mo.
Most expensive plans
- Mobile
- Brunei, French Polynesia, Maldives, New Caledonia, Nauru: $4.99/mo.
- Basic with ads
- United States: $6.99/mo.
- Basic
- Liechtenstein, Switzerland: $12.93/mo.
- Standard
- Liechtenstein, Switzerland: $20.54/mo.
- Premium
- Liechtenstein, Switzerland: $27.06/mo.
Can I save money by changing my billing location?
Probably not.
I tried to create an account with a Pakistani VPN and a foreign card, but the payment step failed with a vague error message:
There appears to be a problem with the payment method you are trying to use.
I assume Netflix only allows local payment methods.
Another option that I have not tried is using gift cards. Ask someone from Pakistan to buy you a gift card and use it to pay for your subscription.
Or lastly, you could also ask someone from Pakistan to set up an account for you with their own payment details. Netflix explains how to do that here.
Is this legal?
Netflix's terms of use read:
You may access the Netflix content primarily within the country in which you have established your account
This means, if your account is set up in India and you are streaming 100% from the US, you are probably violating the terms of use.
But their terms of use also mention:
The Netflix service [...] may not be shared with individuals beyond your household
And you're probably already violating that, so...
Conclusion
Even though the country of your payment method is probably the same as the country of your residence, the deciding factor for the price of Netflix ultimately depends on what payment method you have, not where you live.