Heard of HBO Max and wanted to give it a go but realized that HBO Max but discovered that it’s not possible to watch HBO Max in Europe? We’ll get into why that is in this guide, but most importantly, we’ll show you how you can watch HBO Max in Europe, regardless of where you are.
And there are just 2 main steps to doing that.
...And yes, this guide will also show you how to make an HBO Max account in Europe.
...But first...
The answer?
It goes down to rights to the content.
HBO? It naturally does own the content it creates...but HBO Max is not just HBO. It’s a platform consisting of WarnerMedia and a ton of 3rd party content, which then results in HBO being content-packed.
....And HBO?
HBO is known to sell rights to its content worldwide.
That means that there are both contents that HBO Max pays to show from other platforms and that HBO sells some rights that allow certain platforms to show content in other locations.
The result?
HBO Max does not work in Europe.
Will that change in the future? Possibly. HBO is known for being around in Europe, although mostly in Scandic countries and locations like Poland.
If you want to watch HBO Max in Europe, you need to be able to make HBO Max think that you are in the US.
...Once you have that done, you will need to create an HBO Max account if you don’t already have one. And that’s hard. It requires a card issued in the US. (We have a solution.)
...And that’s it.
If you ever tried to watch any geo-block service, then you probably know that you need a VPN to unblock streaming services.
What do VPN services do?
They allow you to change your location virtually.
...But if you ever tried using a VPN for such a purpose, then you know that it’s not as simple as connecting to the right region and unblocking a service.
That’s because HBO, due to the rights issues, has to make efforts against VPN services.
The same applies with many other streaming platforms which results in most VPN services not supporting platforms like HBO Max.
And that’s where PrivateVPN comes in as a service with a focus on quality rather than quantity, meaning that you won’t see as many servers as other services might have, but that you will instead see servers that are able to unblock platforms like HBO Max.
...But you can find that out for yourself by trying out PrivateVPN’s 7-day trial with no need for a card.
Right now, if you tried to create an HBO Max account and didn’t have an American card, it wouldn’t work.
You would be told that your card doesn’t match the billing address.
That’s because HBO Max, just like almost all other platforms, also have payment blocks to prevent people from outside of the supported regions from signing up.
There are ways to bypass this issue, though, and well, our favorite one consists of signing up on a phone.
Why?
As while if you are on HBO’s website, you will be dealing with HBO’s blocks, on a mobile device, it’s both Apple and Google that handles payments.
There is a catch, though…You first need to change the region of your app store to be in the US so that you can download the HBO Max app in the first place.
High-quality entertainment is best watched on a TV.
Unfortunately, that’s where options are much more limited.
Why?
As most smart TV platforms, whether it be the Apple TV, Roku, or Chromecast, simply do not support VPN services.
Solutions?
If you already have an Amazon Fire TV Stick, here’s how to change your region to download the HBO app:
Just ordered a Fire TV? Just create an account based in the US.
Regardless of where you are in Europe, you can watch HBO Max with these 2 steps.
And the best part?
That these apply to all major streaming services out there.
...But you can find that out when you sign up for PrivateVPN’s 7-day trial with no need for a card.
Written by Michael Smolski.
Disclaimer: While PrivateVPN works with HBO Max, due to the nature of services like HBO Max making efforts against VPN services, it is not able to guarantee non-stop 100% of the time support at all given times. No service can guarantee that.