In short: Spotify needs your address (where you live) to obtain your location data. It’s part of an effort to detect abuse of its Premium Family subscription plan and collect sales tax accordingly.
Are you wondering why a music streaming service like Spotify would need to have information on where you live? It turns out, providing your address is very important. Let’s talk about it.
Why does Spotify need my address?
There are two main reasons why Spotify needs your address. One, is to make sure each member of the Family plan lives at the same address. Two, is to collect sales tax.
1. Verify each member of the Family plan lives together
Spotify needs to verify where you live to make sure all of the account holders live in the same house as the primary account holder of the Family plan (a plan for up to six people).
The Spotify Premium Family is a $15/month plan for up to six people. The only condition is that all six people who use the plan must be living under the same roof.
A lot of people were abusing the Family plan by sharing details with people outside of their family who live in different addresses, which is why Spotify is clamping down on its eligibility.
According to the terms and conditions, members only need to verify their address when they join, when the manager changes their address, or when Spotify cannot confirm their address.
2. Collect sales tax (required by state and local governments)
Some state and local governments may also require Spotify to collect tax whenever it does marketing activities in the state or locality, or uses local sales agents or consultants.
In order to comply with the state and local governments, Spotify needs your address. If they are required to add a tax for your location, the change will be made on your account automatically.
Since August 04, 2021, Spotify has upgraded its systems. If you have not provided your address, you need to do it to ensure the accuracy of sales tax obligated by law.
Does Spotify really need my address?
Yes, Spotify needs your address to prevent its users from abusing the Premium Family plan. It also needs to collect sales tax, which is required in some state and local governments.
If Spotify cannot confirm your address, you will receive an email to re-verify. All you have to do is to enter your address within 7 days of receiving the email.
If the email verification is successful, your account will stay on Premium Family. If you miss the 7-day window, your account will lose access to the plan and switch to free.
Make sure you don’t miss the 7-day window, otherwise, you won’t be able to join any Spotify Premium Family or Duo plan for 12 months from the date the verification failed.
If you are worried about giving away your personal information, don’t worry. Spotify will only use your address to verify your location and nothing else, not even advertisements.
Does Spotify track your location?
Spotify does not track your location. The app only checks your address when you join, when the Family plan manager changes address, or when Spotify cannot confirm your address.
According to Spotify, once the verification of your home address has been completed, the app does not store your location data for internal use or track your location at any time.
Can I remove my address from Spotify?
You cannot remove your address on Spotify. The app needs to verify your location in order for you to use its streaming services. You can, however, change your address.
Can I change my address on Spotify?
You can change your address on Spotify (Family and Duo plan) by editing your profile. To change your address, open the Spotify desktop app or access Spotify using the Web Player.
- Open the Spotify desktop app.
- If you don’t have the app, open the Web Player.
- Sign in to your account.
- Click the profile icon in the top right corner.
- Click Account.
- On the left sidebar menu, do not click either Edit profile or Address.
- Click your current plan (above Edit profile).
- Click the change address button.
- Click the change address button again to confirm.
- Enter your new address.
- Click confirm.
Make sure you are very specific with your address, otherwise, Spotify will not accept your new address. You need to select the exact location of where you live using Google Maps.
If you change your address, Spotify will ask other members of your Family or Duo plan to confirm they live at the new address. If they can’t do this, they may lose access to the plan.
Can you use Spotify Premium Family if you don’t live together?
Spotify claims that Family plan members MUST live at the same address to join Premium Family. But what if you and your family members don’t actually live in the same house?
To answer this question, I asked someone who used to work for Spotify.
Members do not need to live together in the same house to use Spotify Premium Family. However, everyone needs to input the same address when signing up for the plan.
Each member would need to be in the same country at the time of signing up because the system knows when a member is signing up from another country.
If Spotify recognizes this, the member will be flagged and removed from the plan. This is to prevent anyone from signing up and taking advantage of the discounted rates.
Because the cost is $15/month for six people, one person only needs to pay $2.5/month using the Premium Family plan. Spotify only wants to sell this plan to families.
The aim of the family plan is to make sure everyone using the accounts is actually part of the same family. They do this by knowing the address of the primary account holder.
Once everyone has signed up in the same country and inputs the same address, anyone on the Family plan can then travel abroad and listen to music anywhere in the world.
Does Spotify know if you live at the same address?
Spotify won’t know if you live at the same address or not because they don’t track your location. They only check your address during signup to verify you as a family member.
Once everyone has signed up in the same country and inputs the same address, anyone on the Family plan can then travel abroad and listen to music anywhere in the world.
Why does Spotify ask for a postal code?
Spotify asks for your postal code to verify that each member of the Family plan lives in the same region (country) and to ensure the safety of your credit card transaction.
Since Spotify does business in the United States, they need to collect your zip code as part of the Address Verification System (AVS) which occurs for all non-swiped credit card transactions.
Postal codes, also known as zip codes, may help to ensure that your transaction is completed securely. Without entering a valid one, your credit card could be rejected.
Without the zip code, AVS cannot be performed and the risk for that transaction is higher.
According to Spotify’s privacy policy, your postal code and details of your transaction history are collected and stored by third-party payment processors and then collected by Spotify.