How to Change Regions in Valorant with a VPN
Valorant brings together some of the best bits of online gaming: the banter, the tactical communication, the shared joy of victory or bitter taste of defeat. And what’s better than sharing all of that with your friends, and friendly rivals? That’s why it can be somewhat frustrating that Riot region-locks all of its games in one way or another.
To be fair, they are trying to provide the best gaming experience possible by keeping pings low and gameplay smooth. It’s more than understandable, and it’s good that they care about that. But what’s a little ping compared to spending time with your friends? Fortunately, Private Internet Access provides a way to easily change your region and keep your ping as low as possible while you play. It only takes a few minutes to set up.
Quick Guide: Change Your Region in Valorant with a VPN
- Sign up for PIA VPN and download the app for your PC, or configure the VPN on your router.
- Connect to a VPN server in the region you want, and create a new Valorant Account.
- Start up Valorant and play!
Table of Contents
How to Change Region in ValorantWhy You Need to Create a New Riot Account
Changing Your Region of Residence via Customer Support
How to Change Your Region with Riot Points
What’s the Best Region for Valorant?
Why Choose PIA as Your Gaming VPN
FAQ
How to Change Region in Valorant
The first thing you need to know is that regions in Valorant are called Shards. Keep that in mind, and the menus will make sense. Switching between regions is actually pretty simple once you have everything set up.
- Sign up for PIA.
- Download the app for Windows and sign in. If you’re a console player, you’ll need a router or modem that supports VPNs, and you’ll need to configure the router to connect through the VPN server of your choice in the router’s settings page. Click here to learn more.
- Connect to a VPN server that’s in the region you want, and ideally in the same city as the server you want to play on.
- Open up Valorant, and create a new account. On consoles, you’ll also need to create a new Xbox or PlayStation Network account, and sign into that. You can technically have your Valorant account unlinked from your Xbox or PSN account and sign in with the new one, but you don’t want to do that every time.
- Sign in to your new account and have fun meeting a whole lot of new people!
Why You Need to Create a New Riot Account
In short, because Valorant is very much region-locked. Whatever region you’re in when you first make your account, that’s the region you’re stuck with unless you change your Region of Residence through customer support (more on that below).
Creating a new account while using a VPN allows you to select a new region for yourself. It’s simple and easy.
Of course, it does come with the downside that none of your progress or unlocks will carry over from one account to the next, but hey, it’s the simplest and easiest way to play with friends all around the world. If you have friends in different regions, mind, you’ll need to make an account for each region to be able to play with them.
Changing Your Region of Residence via Customer Support
Unlike other Riot games, you can permanently or semi-permanently change your region free of charge in Valorant. To do this, your IP address has to be in that region when you go to Valorant’s support site. Look for the Account Transfer FAQ page to make sure you meet all the requirements.
You’ll be directed to another page where you can actually create a ticket with customer support to change your region. They’ll decide whether or not you actually get to change your Region of Residence (that’s the official term), but at least it’s free.
Most of your data does carry over, but there are a couple of things that don’t. These include: Current Ranked Season Data (you’ll restart the current season), Purchase History, and Match History. Everything else should transfer just fine, though.
We don’t recommend using this method unless you’ve actually moved, because it depends on the customer support team determining that you have, in fact, moved in order to make it work. And while there isn’t a time limit specified in the FAQ, requesting too many Region of Residence changes too quickly would definitely raise some eyebrows.
How to Change Your Region with Riot Points
Note: this method doesn’t work for Valorant. It’s designed for use with League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics. That being said, it’s still good to know how to do this, in case you want to change your region in multiple games. Note that this process will need to be followed on a PC.
A couple of other things to note: when transferring your Riot account to another region, not everything associated with your LoL account will go with it. Things that don’t get transferred include: Victory Points, Honor Level, Forum Badges, your Current Ranked League placement, Your Shop offers, and Clash trophies / banners / Frames / Club affiliations.
Lastly, this process only seems to work for the PC version of LoL, and not for Wild Rift.
This is how you do it:
- Click the Store button in the League of Legends client app.
- Click Purchase RP (if you don’t have enough already).
- Select your payment method, and buy at least 2,600 Riot Points.
- Enter your payment information if necessary.
- Go back to the main store page, and click the Account button.
- Select a new League of Legends server region.
And with that, you’ve transferred your Riot account – at least the bits connected to LoL and TFT – to another region.
What’s the Best Region for Valorant?
That depends on your needs as a gamer, really. If you’re looking for pure speed and low ping, the best region is your region, on the servers closest to you. If you want to play with a friend who lives far away, then you might connect to their region, or one that’s at a sort of halfway point, if they can change regions too.
If you want the servers with the most players, the Asia-Pacific region (which is focused on Asia and Oceania) is the most populous according to tracker.gg, with Europe coming in second.
Why Choose PIA as Your Gaming VPN
There are quite a few reasons, but here are the two biggest for Valorant region-hoppers: the server network and the speed. PIA has VPN servers in 90+ countries all over the planet, so no matter what region you want to play in, PIA can make that happen for you.
As for speed, PIA’s fast network is designed to process mountains of data in milliseconds, to make sure your shots go where you aim them. It also automatically looks for the fastest route between you and the VPN server you chose. Pick one that’s close to the game server, and PIA can smooth out lag spikes and make your connection more stable. It can also route your signal around problems like congested networks, and the odd misconfigured server in your ISP’s data center to actually lower your ping.
On top of all that, PIA masks your IP address and encrypts all traffic between you and the VPN server. This means that you can safely buy cosmetics in the shop, even if you’re playing on public Wi-Fi where others might try to steal your payment info. It can also bypass blocks on games at work and school, and bypass ISP game traffic throttling.
All of that comes with 24/7 customer support via live chat and email, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
FAQ
Yes, it’s easy with a VPN. Sign up for PIA, connect to a VPN server in the country you want to play in, and create a new Valorant account for that region. It takes mere minutes before you’re up and running. You can also change the Region of Residence for your existing account by opening a ticket with Riot, but you should only do that if you move.
Yes you can! Mind you, Riot Account Transfers are different from Region of Residence changes for Valorant. Account Transfers are meant for LoL PC players and Teamfight Tactics players. You can open up the PC client for either of those games, and purchase an Account Transfer in the store for 2,600 Riot Points each time, with a 90-day cooldown.
Yes and yes. Let’s explain that. In regions (or Shards, as Valorant refers to them) that have multiple server locations, you can switch between the servers at will. That’s simple and easy, and doesn’t require any extra tools. Switching between Shards / regions, however, does require using a VPN and making a new Valorant account for that region.
Yes. The very first time you log into the game, the region you’re in becomes your home for that account. It’s technically possible to change your account region, but that involves contacting customer support. We don’t recommend doing that unless you’ve actually moved to another region.
Australia falls into the Asia-Pacific region. The server is located in Sydney, and shares the region with servers in Tokyo – Japan, Singapore, Mumbai – India, Hong Kong, and Seoul – South Korea. Many online games seem to forego Australian servers altogether, so Valorant is ahead of the curve, in that regard.
There’s a bit of conflicting information out there, but here’s what Riot themselves say: yes. Riot Point codes, gift cards, and other redeemable codes are all region-locked. The same can also be said for Microsoft Rewards codes that grant the user Riot Points. If you buy a gift card or code, make sure it’s keyed to the region where you want to use it.
PIA is the best gaming VPN. With fast servers in 90+ countries, you’ll always be able to get a smooth, stable connection to the Valorant servers you want to play on. In some cases, they can even reduce your ping. The IP masking and powerful encryption also let you bypass game blocks at work or school, and mitigate DDoS attacks.