How to change your location on Facebook Marketplace

Change your location on a computer

1. Go to facebook.com/marketplace and sign in.
2. Click your current location in the left column. It shows a place name and a distance, such as “Toronto · Within 40 kilometres”.
3. Delete the place and type a new one. A city works, but a postal code (in Canada, the first three characters are enough, like M4E) or ZIP code is more precise.
4. Pick the match from the list that appears.
5. Choose a radius from the menu.
6. Click Apply. The listings reload for the new area.

Change your location on iPhone and Android

1. Open the Facebook app and go to Marketplace. It is the shop icon in the tab bar, or under the menu if you don’t see it there.
2. Tap the location shown near the top of Marketplace, next to the search bar or under it.
3. Type a city, neighbourhood or postal code, or drag the map pin to where you are.
4. Set the radius with the slider or menu.
5. Tap Apply.

The app keeps this location for Marketplace until you change it again or Facebook resets it from your device’s location.

Location wrong or won’t change? Fixes

Work down this list. Most people are fixed by the first three.

1. Set it by hand. Type your postal code rather than letting Marketplace detect where you are.
2. Turn off your VPN or proxy. A VPN makes you look like you’re in another city, or another country, and Marketplace believes it.
3. Check location permission. On iPhone, go to Settings, Facebook, Location. On Android, go to Settings, Apps, Facebook, Permissions, Location. On a computer, check the site permissions for facebook.com in your browser.
4. Start a fresh search. Go back to the Marketplace home page and search again, so old filters don’t carry the old place with them.
5. Update the app, then sign out and back in.
6. Clear the cache. On Android, Settings, Apps, Facebook, Storage, Clear cache. On a computer, clear site data for facebook.com.

Why does Marketplace think I’m in Paris?

Many people have reported Marketplace suddenly filling with listings from Paris, or another city they have never been to. Facebook hasn’t explained it publicly. It seems to happen when Marketplace can’t work out where you are, for example through a VPN, with location permission off, or after travelling. The fix that people report working is the plain one: set the location by hand, then check the VPN and the permission so it doesn’t drift back.

Search another city, or the whole country

To shop in another city, set your Marketplace location to that city. This is useful before a move (you learn local prices before you arrive) or when you’re driving somewhere anyway and can pick something up on the way.

There is no supported nationwide search. The widest radius is 500 miles (about 805 km), drawn from one location, so covering Canada or the US means searching from a handful of cities in turn. CarSnipe notes that Facebook turns a ZIP code into a city-level point, so two postal codes in the same city tend to give the same results.

Shipped listings are the exception: they can come from anywhere, but only from sellers willing to post the item, and buying from someone you can’t meet carries more risk. Never pay a far-away seller by e-transfer or gift card for an item you haven’t seen.

Your location is a point, not your home

Whatever you type, Marketplace turns it into a single point and draws your radius from there. If you type “Toronto”, that point is somewhere in the middle of a very big city, and your 10 km radius may not reach your own neighbourhood’s edge. Typing your postal code moves the point closer.

Even then, the circle is a straight line and shipped listings ignore it. Our guide on why Marketplace shows listings outside your radius explains the leaks and how to plug each one.

Set your home once on a computer

Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, takes a different approach. You tell it where home is, once, by picking from 2,000+ built-in cities and regions or using your position once. From then on, Sift measures every listing from your home, shows the distance on each card (“12 km”) and hides anything past the distance you set, whatever Facebook thinks your location is.

That makes a wrong Marketplace location much less painful: if Facebook drifts to the wrong neighbourhood, your limit still holds. It runs in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer, so on your phone the steps above are still the way to go. See how Sift’s distance filter works.

Changing your location on Kijiji

On Kijiji, the location sits next to the search box: choose a province, city or region, or enter a postal code or address with a radius such as “Within 10 km”. Kijiji remembers it for your next visit. More on searching Kijiji in Sift for Kijiji.