YouTube Region Restriction Checker

Check where public YouTube videos are available or blocked by country.

YouTube Region Restriction Checker turns video URLs into a clean regional availability dataset for rights, marketing, localization, and creator operations teams.

What does YouTube Region Restriction Checker do?

It reads public YouTube player metadata and returns country-level availability for each video you submit.

Use it to answer questions such as:

• 🌍 Is this video available in the United States?
• 🌍 Is this campaign video blocked in Germany or France?
• 🌍 Which countries appear allowed by YouTube metadata?
• 🌍 Which countries are inferred as blocked?
• 🌍 Which videos need replacement assets for regional landing pages?

Who is it for?

Rights managers

Verify territorial availability before sending reports to partners.

Content marketers

Check that video landing pages work in launch markets.

Localization teams

Find countries where a localized fallback video may be needed.

MCNs and creator operations teams

Audit client video libraries before campaign delivery.

Agencies

Document where public client videos can be viewed.

Why use this checker?

Manual YouTube testing is slow because one video may need to be checked against many countries.

This actor gives you a structured export instead of screenshots or notes.

Benefits:

• ✅ Batch video checks
• ✅ Target country availability
• ✅ Allowed country list when YouTube exposes it
• ✅ Inferred blocked country list
• ✅ Video title and channel metadata
• ✅ API-ready dataset
• ✅ No YouTube API key required

Data table

Field	Description
videoId	YouTube video ID
url	Canonical watch URL
title	Video title when available
channelName	Channel name
channelId	Channel ID
thumbnailUrl	Best available thumbnail URL
status	available, blocked, unknown, or error
playableInEmbed	Embed playability hint when available
allowedCountries	Countries YouTube exposes as allowed
blockedCountries	Countries inferred as blocked
blockedCount	Number of inferred blocked countries
allowedCount	Number of allowed countries
targetCountryAvailability	Availability for your requested countries
checkedAt	ISO timestamp
sourceCountry	Source country if available
error	Error message for failed checks

How much does it cost to check YouTube region restrictions?

Pricing is pay-per-event.

The actor charges:

• a small run start event
• one check event per YouTube video result saved

Example:

• 2 videos
• 10 target countries
• 2 video checks

This keeps small audits cheap and scales with the number of videos you process.

How to use it

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Add YouTube URLs or video IDs.
3. Add target countries such as US, GB, DE, FR.
4. Run the actor.
5. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or through the API.

Input

{
  "videoUrlsOrIds": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
  ],
  "countries": ["US", "GB", "DE", "FR", "CA", "AU"],
  "includeAllowedCountries": true,
  "includeBlockedCountries": true
}

Output

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "title": "Example video title",
  "channelName": "Example channel",
  "channelId": "UC...",
  "status": "available",
  "allowedCountries": ["US", "GB", "DE"],
  "blockedCountries": ["FR"],
  "blockedCount": 1,
  "allowedCount": 3,
  "targetCountryAvailability": [
    { "country": "US", "status": "available" },
    { "country": "FR", "status": "blocked" }
  ],
  "checkedAt": "2026-06-20T00:00:00.000Z",
  "error": null
}

Country codes

Use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes.

Examples:

• US — United States
• GB — United Kingdom
• DE — Germany
• FR — France
• CA — Canada
• AU — Australia
• IN — India
• JP — Japan
• BR — Brazil
• MX — Mexico

Tips for best results

• Use public YouTube video URLs.
• Avoid private, deleted, or members-only videos.
• Keep country lists focused when you only need launch markets.
• Enable allowed and blocked country arrays for audit exports.
• Use raw video IDs when URLs come from multiple sources.

Common workflows

Campaign launch QA

Check every campaign video against your paid media target countries.

Rights territory audit

Export allowed and blocked countries for partner documentation.

Localization planning

Find videos blocked in target locales and prepare fallback assets.

Landing page monitoring

Run the same input periodically to detect availability changes.

Integrations

You can connect the dataset to:

• Google Sheets
• Airtable
• BI dashboards
• QA pipelines
• campaign launch checklists
• rights management workflows

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker').call({
  videoUrlsOrIds: ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
  countries: ['US', 'GB', 'DE']
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker').call(run_input={
    'videoUrlsOrIds': ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'],
    'countries': ['US', 'GB', 'DE'],
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

API usage with cURL

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~youtube-region-restriction-checker/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"videoUrlsOrIds":["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"],"countries":["US","GB","DE"]}'

MCP usage

Use the Apify MCP server with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code.

MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker

Claude Code setup:

$claude mcp add apify-youtube-region-checker --transport http "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker"

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-youtube-region-checker": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker"
    }
  }
}

Cursor MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-youtube-region-checker": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker"
    }
  }
}

VS Code MCP config:

{
  "servers": {
    "apify-youtube-region-checker": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/youtube-region-restriction-checker"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Check if these YouTube campaign videos are available in US, GB, DE, and FR."
• "Create a table of blocked countries for this YouTube video list."
• "Compare regional availability before and after a rights update."

Troubleshooting

Why is status unknown?

Some videos may not expose a complete country list in public metadata. The actor returns unknown when it cannot infer country-level status safely.

Why did a video return error?

The video may be private, deleted, age-restricted, temporarily unavailable, or blocked by YouTube's response.

Limitations

YouTube can change public page metadata.

The actor does not bypass private videos, login-only videos, or DRM restrictions.

Country availability is based on public metadata and inferred lists, not a logged-in YouTube account.

Legality

This actor reads public YouTube pages and metadata. Make sure your usage follows YouTube's terms, local law, and your organization's compliance policies.

Do not use the actor to collect private data.

Related scrapers

Other automation-lab actors that may help YouTube and content workflows:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-channel-search-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-trending-videos-scraper
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/youtube-community-posts-scraper

FAQ

Can I check Shorts URLs?

Yes. The actor accepts Shorts URLs when they contain a normal 11-character YouTube video ID.

Do I need a YouTube API key?

No. The actor uses public YouTube player metadata and does not require a YouTube Data API key.

Can I check every country?

Yes. Pricing scales by checked video result, so you can use focused launch markets or broader country lists as needed.

Does it use proxies?

SHADER proxy routing is enabled by default for reliability on larger batches. You can override the proxy configuration if your workflow requires a different route.

Can I schedule daily checks?

Yes. Create an Apify task with your video list and schedule it.

Changelog

Initial version:

• YouTube URL and ID parsing
• public player metadata extraction
• allowed and blocked countries
• target country availability
• PPE per video result saved

Support

If a public video fails unexpectedly, include the run ID and example input when asking for help.