Are you heading abroad and want to still be able to use your Amazon Prime Video subscription? Or, perhaps you want to access Amazon Prime Video content that’s only available in another country?
No matter what your reason is, you can do it using NordVPN’s powerful service and easy-to-use app.
We have put NordVPN to the test and are here to show you how you can unblock Amazon Prime yourself.
Why Does Amazon Block Content?
It is to do with content licensing—it’s not Amazon being mean.
Different countries have different laws regarding content licensing and in the case of content streaming services (Amazon, Netflix…) they need agreements in each place in each country for each piece of content.
An agreement that allows The Office to be streamed through Amazon Prime Instant Video in the US, for example, wouldn’t be valid in the UK.
Without these agreements in place, studios, actors, and producers cannot earn royalties and if royalties cannot be earned, there would be no content streaming full stop.
Why Use NordVPN to Unblock Amazon Prime?
Just like with Netflix, the content available through Amazon Prime Video’s library varies from country-to-country. In the US, for example, there is a wider range of TV shows and movies available on-demand than there is in the UK.
By using NordVPN, however, you can spoof your physical location and when you do this, Prime Video will think you are in a different country and show you that country’s library.
Again, like Netflix, Amazon tries to prevent users from doing this by blocking VPN services. This is why it is important to use a reliable VPN such as NordVPN.
Unblocking Amazon Prime with NordVPN
It’s actually very easy to partly get around the Amazon Prime Video geoblocking measures. We say partly because Amazon’s extremely strict geoblocking means that a VPN, regardless of which provider you use, is only able to unblock US and UK libraries.
It can only be done on desktop devices, though.
Here’s how.
1. Purchase, Download, and Install NordVPN
NordVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all their plans. This means you can try the VPN service out and if you don’t like it, you can just ask for a refund in case you’re not satisfied for whatever reason.
We recommend purchasing a 2 or 3-year plan for maximum savings—they are all eligible for the 30-day money-back guarantee.
2. Launch NordVPN and Choose a Country
It’s very easy to do this. As soon as you launch NordVPN you’ll see a map and a list of countries to the left. Either click on a country in the menu or click a location on the map to connect to a server within that country.
In this example, we are connecting to the UK as an example to unlock the UK’s Amazon Prime library.
3. Navigate to Amazon’s Prime Instant Video Library
You can actually visit any Amazon Prime Instant Video library by simply changing the URL you are navigating to. By doing this, you can view that country’s video library but will not be able to watch any content.
To visit Amazon’s Instant Video library, you can visit amazon.com/av
To visit Amazon UK’s Instant Video library, for example, you would visit amazon.co.uk/av. Canada’s is .ca, Japan’s is .jp, and France’s is .fr, etc.
Since VPNs can only unblock US and UK Prime Instant Video, you would either—
- Connect to a US NordVPN server and visit amazon.com/av or
- Connect to a UK NordVPN server and visit amazon.co.uk/av
The fact that you can only unblock US and UK content is down to Amazon’s extremely strict and advanced geoblocking. This is not down to NordVPN—no VPN service can unblock other libraries such as those in France or Japan.
4. Start Streaming Content
That’s it!
To test if it’s worked, find some content that is only available on each country’s library. At the time of writing, one of these shows is Vikings.
All is good!
What If It Isn’t Working for Me?
Sometimes Amazon will catch NordVPN servers and blacklist them. If this happens, simply connect to a different server, one of them is bound to work since NordVPN is always removing old servers and adding new ones.
You will know if a NordVPN server isn’t working because Amazon Prime Instant Video will display this message:
For us, this method of unblocking Amazon Prime worked the first time and we didn’t have to start trying out different UK servers.
You can connect to a different server within a location by using the left-hand menu and clicking the three dots (. . .) to open a server selection panel.
If none of the servers are working for you, we recommend contacting NordVPN’s support team. They are available 24/7 through both email and live chat and they will do everything they can to get Amazon Prime up and running for you.
We’ve even tested this ourselves by asking the live chat agent directly!
Try NordVPN Today for Free
Thanks to NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee, you essentially get a free trial of NordVPN. If you don’t like the service or it isn’t what you need (unlikely!) you can simply contact customer support and ask for your money back.
Want to learn more about NordVPN? Read our full NordVPN review.
If you’ve made up your mind, you can sign up for NordVPN here.
