BBC iPlayer is free. Every BBC channel live, the whole catch-up catalogue, Match of the Day, Wimbledon and the international football the BBC holds, at no cost beyond a free account. BBC iPlayer is only available in the UK, so if you want to watch BBC iPlayer outside the UK, StreamLocator gives iPlayer a UK connection and lets it play as if you were back home instead of showing an error.
For British viewers living abroad or travelling outside the UK, this guide explains what iPlayer carries, how to register a BBC account from outside the UK, how to set up StreamLocator to unblock iPlayer, and how iPlayer differs from other BBC international services.
There is no location to pick. iPlayer streams from the UK and nowhere else, so StreamLocator routes it there for you.
Live television. BBC One, Two, Three and Four, the news and parliament channels, and the regional variations, streaming as they broadcast.
Catch-up and box sets. The BBC's own catalogue, including full runs of series that appear nowhere else outside the UK.
Sport. Match of the Day, Wimbledon, international football, athletics and the events the BBC holds through the year. Bundesliga Friday-night matches are carried free.
Radio and podcasts sit alongside it on BBC Sounds, which is a separate service with the same geographic restriction.
The BBC is funded by the UK licence fee, so BBC iPlayer checks your IP address to confirm you are in the UK before it plays anything. Step outside and you get an error, because BBC iPlayer is only accessible with a uk ip address, even though nobody anywhere is paying a subscription for it.
StreamLocator gives iPlayer a UK connection to look at, which is all it needs to serve you the same catalogue it serves at home; a VPN can also supply a british ip address so bbc iplayer thinks you are in the UK. But BBC iPlayer is active in detecting vpns, so whether a vpn works often comes down to the quality of the provider’s uk server and how well it maintains reliable access. StreamLocator gets around that by maintaining dozens of IP ranges just for BBC iplayer that don't fail.
Setting it up on your home wi-fi router is worth the extra five minutes if more than one person in the house watches, because it covers every device at once, including the ones that cannot run an app.
Free, and quick. With StreamLocator running, go to iPlayer and create an account with an email address, a date of birth and a valid UK postcode. When signing up for BBC iPlayer, the BBC then asks you to confirm that you have a tv license. Simply click "Yes, I have a TV licesnse" even if you don't.
That's it. No card, no subscription, no payment method of any kind. iPlayer is a rare steaming service where there is nothing to buy from the service itself.
Worth being clear about what the other routes actually give you, because the BBC's international offering shares a name with iPlayer and is not the same thing.
Some BBC programmes may also appear on international streaming platforms such as BritBox or Netflix, but that is not the same as getting full iPlayer access.
If you want the rest of British free-to-air television from abroad, we also have guides to ITVX and Channel 4.
iPlayer is the best free streaming service in the world and it is walled off by a postcode. For British viewers abroad it is the whole of home television in one place, and the only thing standing between you and it is where you happen to be sitting.
Start your free 7-day trial, set StreamLocator up once, and sign in to iPlayer.
Yes. iPlayer only streams inside the United Kingdom, so on its own it will not work abroad. With StreamLocator running, iPlayer sees a UK connection and everything plays as it does at home. There is no location to choose, because the UK is the only country iPlayer streams from.
Yes, completely. There is no subscription and no card involved. You need a free BBC account, and the BBC asks you to confirm you have a TV licence when you register.
An email address, a date of birth and a UK postcode. The BBC also asks you to confirm you have a TV licence. Registration is free and takes a couple of minutes.
There is no iPlayer subscription to include, because iPlayer is free. You pay StreamLocator for the access that reaches it from where you live, and the same subscription works with other streaming services too.
Match of the Day, Wimbledon, international football, athletics and the events the BBC holds through the year. Bundesliga Friday-night matches are also carried free.
iPlayer runs in a browser and in its apps for phones, tablets, smart TVs, games consoles and streaming boxes. StreamLocator has apps for Android TV, Fire TV, Android and iOS. On anything else, including Apple TV, Roku, games consoles and computers, you copy two short lines of numbers from your StreamLocator account into the device’s network settings, or into your router. Setting it on the router covers every device in the house at once.
StreamLocator DNS unlocks geo‑restricted shows, movies, and live sports from anywhere in the world.
There’s nothing to install — just a quick setup on your device or router.
It's the easy option - set it up on any internet-connected device, and it runs seamlessly in the background. No country switching required.
Sign up today and start watching global content like a local!
If you’re not sure whether StreamLocator is for you, why not take it for a test drive? Try it out for 7 days free.
If you have any questions, contact one of our experts today.We’ll be happy to provide all the information you need.
For all technical requests, enquiries about accessing services, help setting up, or anything else—we’re ready and waiting to help.
