One Google help page, 28 language versions, four that tell the truth
The same Google Ads help page, requested in 28 locales on the same day. Four list 42 markets. Twenty-four say the product exists only in America — and every one of those 24 belongs to a market that is on the list.
Waze ads stopped being an American-only product some time this summer. The official country list on the Google Ads help centre now runs to 42 markets, and it includes most of Europe. If you advertise physical locations, that is a new surface you may already have.
The awkward part is how you find out. One page carries the list, and it carries it only in English. Requested in Italian, Romanian, German, French, Spanish or British English on the same day, the same page still heads its section Waze (United States only). Not a mistranslation — a translation that has not caught up.
What you get from reading: the two official sentences in full, a count across 28 locale variants of that one page, the conditions that actually gate the inventory, and a thirty-second method you can reuse on any Google help page that looks suspiciously restrictive.
- Both official notes, quoted in full, read on the same day.
- The count across 28 locale variants, and which four break the pattern.
- The 42 markets grouped: 31 are European, and all 27 EU states are there.
- What you actually need before any of this is worth trying, and who can ignore it.
Here is a small, irritating thing that happens when an advertising platform opens a product in Europe: the news exists, but it exists in one language. On 5 September 2026 the Google Ads help page about Performance Max campaigns for store goals lists 42 markets where Waze ads are available. Ask for the same page in twenty-four other locales on the same day and it says the product is available only in the United States.
What the audit found
On 5 September 2026 the English Google Ads help page lists 42 markets where Waze ads are available, while 24 of the 28 locale variants of that same page still say United States only.
Every clause there is checkable in two minutes, and we say how below. The set was defined by a rule before we started counting: the same page, the same article identifier, requested with the language parameter for the 24 official languages of the European Union, plus the British, Australian, Canadian and Irish English variants. Twenty-eight requests, one day, all through a real browser, because these pages assemble their text with JavaScript.
In this article «Waze ads» is the name Google's page gives to an inventory inside Performance Max campaigns for store goals. It is not a separate advertising platform with its own console, it has no budget of its own and it is not bought separately. If you are looking for a place to open a Waze account and buy, there is no such place: there is a different box inside a Google Ads campaign.
Of 28 variants of the same page, 24 still say United States only
We requested the same Google Ads help page with the language parameter for the 24 official languages of the European Union, plus the British, Australian, Canadian and Irish English variants. All read on 5 September 2026, in a real browser. The gold row is the one worth staring at.
Source: Cittago count across 28 locale variants of Google Ads Help page answer/12971048, read on 5 September 2026 in a real browser · cittago.com
| variants | |
|---|---|
| Translated EU languages | 21 |
| English GB, AU, IE | 3 |
| English: en and en-CA | 2 |
| Untranslated: ga and mt | 2 |
Four variants show the list: English, Canadian English, Irish and Maltese. The other twenty-four say United States only, each in its own language.
The reason those four is the part worth keeping. Irish and Maltese are the two official EU languages this page has not been translated into: ask in either and you are served the English text, which is the updated one. So the only two Union languages from which an advertiser can see the truth are the two where Google has translated nothing at all. That is not a paradox so much as a description of how a translation queue behaves.
British, Australian and Irish English are adapted rather than translated — the British variant writes shop where the American one writes store — and they sit on the old text. The United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland are all three on the list of 42. So is every market behind the other twenty-one locales. Twenty-four out of twenty-four.
Both sentences, in full
The English page has a section headed simply Waze, and a note under it:
«Waze Ads are currently available across select global markets through Performance Max for store goals campaigns bidding on Store Visits, Store Sales, or Local Actions Directions. Supported countries are listed below:»
Then the list, from United States to Switzerland. Note what is not there: a number. Google writes select global markets and then the names. The 42 is ours, counted off the comma-separated names, and we say so because a number without a counter behind it is worth very little.
The Italian version of the same page, same day, heads the section Waze (solo Stati Uniti) and says the ads are «disponibili solo negli Stati Uniti». The Romanian says «numai in Statele Unite». The British English one is the awkward case, because there is no translation to blame — its section heading reads «Waze (United States only)» and its note reads:
«Waze Ads are currently available only in the United States through Performance Max for shop goal campaigns bidding to shop visits, shop sales or local actions directions.»
The rest of the section is identical everywhere: the description of the branded square pin, the line about the driving audience, the condition about bidding on local actions. Only the availability line differs, and it differs in the least helpful way. Not vague — precise and wrong.
The 42 markets, and their shape
The composition of the list says something the text does not.
Thirty-one of the forty-two are European, and all 27 EU states are in
We took the list exactly as written on the English page and grouped it. The count is ours: Google prints no number, only the phrase select global markets and then the names. The result has a recognisable shape.
Source: country list on Google Ads Help page answer/12971048 in English, read on 5 September 2026; grouping and count are ours · cittago.com
| countries | |
|---|---|
| European Union states | 27 |
| Outside Europe | 11 |
| EEA non-EU: IS, LI, NO | 3 |
| Switzerland | 1 |
Thirty-one of the forty-two are European, and not an arbitrary thirty-one: the 27 EU member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway — together the European Economic Area — plus Switzerland. The other eleven are the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Australia, Malaysia, Israel and the United Kingdom.
That the 31 European markets opened together, or that Google reasoned in regions at all. The EEA-plus-Switzerland shape is a regularity we noticed in the list, not a statement Google made: there is no line on the page that groups the countries. If someone tells you Waze ads opened «across the EEA», they are making our inference, not citing a source.
When it changed, and why we cannot give you the day
A Google help page carries no last-modified date. So when did this change is not a question you answer by reading the page; it is a question you answer by comparing two readings of it.
From one market to 42, inside a window of almost three months
Same page, same hl=en parameter, two readings. The archived copy of 10 June 2026 says Waze (United States only); the direct read of 5 September 2026 lists 42 countries. In between we have no date: when we tried to narrow the window, the archive answered Temporarily Offline.
Sources: archived copy of 10 June 2026 (Internet Archive) and direct read on 5 September 2026, same page, same hl=en parameter · cittago.com
| markets listed | |
|---|---|
| 10 Jun 2026 | 1 |
| 5 Sep 2026 | 42 |
The most recent usable archived copy we could read is from 10 June 2026, and it is unambiguous: section heading Waze (United States only), note saying only in the United States. The direct read of 5 September 2026 lists 42 countries. That is a window 87 days wide, and today we cannot narrow it: while we were querying the archive's index for intermediate copies, the service was answering Temporarily Offline. We write that down instead of rounding, because an invented date would be more convenient and less true.
What is certain is that the trade press noticed on 4 September 2026. And that the day after, when we read it, the translations had not moved.
The second page, which says a third thing
One detail turns this from a translation slip into a maintenance question. The Google Ads help centre also holds the page that announced Waze inventory arriving in Performance Max, back in November 2025. We read it on the same 5 September 2026, in English, Italian and Romanian. It is still written in the future tense:
«We are planning to expand Waze inventory to additional markets beyond the U.S. in 2026.»
So inside one help centre, on one day: one page lists 42 markets as available, and another says the company plans to open them during the year. Not a serious contradiction — announcement pages age — but exactly the kind of thing that costs half an hour to someone trying to work out whether they can buy.
| 10 June 2026 | 5 September 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Section heading, English page | Waze (United States only) | Waze |
| Markets listed, English page | 1 | 42 |
| Section heading, British English page | not checked | Waze (United States only) |
| Announcement page, all languages | not checked | «planning to expand ... in 2026» |
What you need before any of this matters
The country list is a condition, not a switch. The English page is clear about the rest, and the rest binds harder than geography does.
- Declared physical locations. The campaign needs to know which stores you are promoting: link a Business Profile, or select affiliate locations if you sell through resellers.
- A Performance Max campaign for store goals. There is no Waze campaign type. The inventory sits inside this campaign and is not bought separately.
- Bidding on local actions (directions). The page states it plainly: promoted places on Waze are included when you bid on local actions, either exclusively or alongside store visits or sales.
- A radius, set or inferred. Store goals campaigns use a radius around your locations, which you either set in location targeting or leave to be determined automatically from the locations and how far people are willing to travel to them.
- Your country on the list. The last condition, and on 5 September 2026 the only one you can read in exactly one language.
Miss one and there is nothing to switch on. Which is where a practical note belongs: whether your campaign structure can carry this is a fair question to put to whoever handles your Google Ads campaign management — or to anyone who touches the account, as long as it gets asked before the goals of a working campaign are changed. If you have no physical locations, you can skip the question entirely: without stores there is no such inventory.
What this is not
Availability lists create an optical effect: they look like promises. They are not.
- Not a guarantee of delivery. A market on the list means the inventory is eligible, not that your ads will show or that volume exists.
- Not a channel you can buy on its own. No separate budget, no separate bid, no Waze campaign: it is a surface inside Performance Max.
- Not relevant to online-only sellers. With no locations to promote, store goals have nothing to point at.
- Not a statement about performance. We have no figures of our own to show here and we are not showing any: what can be checked today is documentation, not outcome.
The minimum glossary
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Performance Max for store goals | The campaign type that promotes physical locations across Google surfaces at once, Waze included. |
| Promoted Places in Navigation | The format: a branded square pin along a driver's route which, when tapped, shows location and directions. |
| Local actions (directions) | The bidding goal that opens the Waze inventory; it can stand alone or sit alongside store visits and store sales. |
| Business Profile / affiliate locations | The two ways of declaring which stores you promote. |
| The hl= parameter | The piece of the address that decides which language a Google help page is served in. Changing it is the whole method of this article. |
What to do today, in three thresholds
Not a conclusion: a way to work out which of three situations you are in.
- You have no physical locations. Stop here. This inventory does not concern you and will not until you open one.
- You have locations but do not run Performance Max for store goals. Then the question is not Waze. It is whether that campaign type suits you at all, with everything it implies about goals and measurement. Waze is a consequence, not a reason.
- You already run Performance Max for store goals with bidding on local actions. Then, per the English page of 5 September 2026, the inventory should already be available to you. The place to look is the campaign's channel performance report, not the settings panel: Performance Max surfaces are not toggled by hand.
And if your panel, or the person running your account, tells you Waze is American-only, you now know where that sentence comes from and how to check it: open the same page with hl=en and read the list. It takes thirty seconds.
Questions nobody has actually asked us
Some of these we put to ourselves while comparing the twenty-eight versions; the rest are what a person with a shop and a running campaign tends to ask.
Are Waze ads available outside the United States?
According to the list published on the English Google Ads help page, read on 5 September 2026, yes: 42 markets are named, and 31 of them are European. Twenty-four other locale variants of the same page, read the same day, still say United States only. The check that counts is the English list; the definitive one is your own campaign.
Can I run a Waze-only campaign?
No. There is no Waze campaign type. The inventory is one of the surfaces of a Performance Max campaign for store goals, and access comes from bidding on local actions — directions — either alone or alongside store visits and store sales.
Why does my language version say something different?
Because it is a translation, and help centre translations update after the original. It is not a locale-specific fact: it is the same page, sitting on an earlier version. The clearest evidence is that the two EU languages with no translation, Irish and Maltese, show the updated English text.
What do Waze ads cost?
There is no Waze price. The cost is the cost of the Performance Max campaign the inventory sits inside, and it depends on bidding, competition and locations. We publish no figures of our own on that.
How do I see whether my ads are running on Waze?
In the campaign's channel performance report. Performance Max surfaces are not switched on individually in settings, so the place to look is performance rather than configuration.
Do I need a Business Profile?
You need declared locations. The usual route is linking a Business Profile; the alternative, if you sell through resellers, is selecting affiliate locations. Without declared locations a store goals campaign has nothing to promote.
When did the page change?
Between 10 June and 5 September 2026. The archived copy of 10 June still says United States only; the direct read of 5 September lists 42 countries. We cannot narrow that further: the archive's index, queried that day, reported the service as temporarily offline.
Does 31 European markets mean it is open across the whole EEA?
That is the natural inference, but it stays our inference. Nothing on the page groups the countries — there are only names. We counted them and noticed they coincide with the EEA plus Switzerland. Google does not write that.
Is it worth changing the goals of a working campaign to get Waze?
On our reading, not as the main reason. Moving to local-actions bidding changes what the campaign optimises for, and that is felt across everything, not just in one extra surface. Waze is a good reason to review a campaign, not to overturn it.
How do I repeat this check myself on another feature?
Take the help page address, replace the value after hl= with en, and read it again. If the two versions disagree, the English one governs, because that is the language those pages are written in. It works on any Google Ads help centre page.
Last updated: 5 September 2026. The list of 42 markets, both quoted notes and the campaign requirements come from the Google Ads help page «About Performance Max campaigns for store goals», read on 5 September 2026 across 28 locale variants in a real browser. The future-tense sentence comes from the announcement page in the same help centre, read in English, Italian and Romanian the same day. The 10 June 2026 reading comes from an Internet Archive copy. The country count and the grouping are ours: no number appears on the page. We update this page when the list changes or either note changes.
Sources: Google Ads Help, Performance Max for store goals (English) · The same page in Italian · The same page in Romanian · Google Ads Help, the Waze inventory announcement · Archived copy of 10 June 2026 · Search Engine Roundtable, 4 September 2026
