H. Valters
Ethical Penetration tester / DevSecOps / IT Solution Developer / System administrator
How to avoid HBO Max country restriction
To be honest, I don’t understand why Streaming companies add restrictions and limit accessibility by other country users, but despite my previous attempts to get an HBO Max Subscription when I was in Stockholm. After some time I have found a solution, how to avoid the GEO and Card Validation block.
The story, I registered my HBO Max account when I was in Sweden Stockholm and wanted to add my bank card to activate it, but the issue was that HBO declined my Bank card with a message, that this card comes from a country, that is not whitelisted for Subscription, Yes that is right as my Bank Cards were Latvian and at the same time Revolut that has card registered in Lithuania. Since I wanted so badly to access HBO Max then I came up with a solution.
I had a Samsung Galaxy A33 laying around from one of the Android learning projects. So the first thing to register and get HBO Max working, I created a new Google account and registered it in Sweden, choosing a Hotel address. Then I went into Revolut and activated a Swedish Cron account ( That is free of charge and is only needed for registration ). After having that I connected to VPN ( I’m using VPN called Hide My Ass, you can use any VPN that offers a trial ) and then downloaded the HBO Max app on the Android after it was done, I created an account and selected Google pay as a method since google was registered in Sweden they provide information to the vendor that payment comes from Sweden with Sweden tax. After that was done, I could Just disconnect from VPN and start watching HBO Max content.
Since I purchased a PlayStation 5 for my daughter and PS5 Doesn’t have Latvia or other Baltic states when you register, then I also chose Sweden, and HBO Max is available on the PlayStation 5.
For LG Smart TV there is a tricky situation it has Latvia, but if I choose Latvia I cannot download HBO Max, so in the end I also created an LG Smart TV account selecting Sweden.
For Apple, you would need to unsubscribe from all services, wait for them to expire, and then you can change country, but I didn’t do that as if compare service prices that I have it is cheaper to have my country. But on my Ipad, I watch movies/shows very rarely. On my iPhone, I don’t do that at all.
Hope that this article will come in handy for someone and you can also enjoy HBO Max. But if you are from Latvia then I would suggest for few Eur to take tet.plus as they are continuing to add HBO Max content with Latvian audio and for some also Latvian text, only difference currently is that in HBO Max you get more content at the moment and more Movies/Shows for children ( Oldies like Tom and Jerry, Scobby doo and etc. )