ChatGPT Ads is fully open in Europe. Ads have served to users in 31 European markets, the 27 EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, since 24 August 2026, and businesses registered in those same 31 markets have been able to open their own advertiser account since 31 August, when OpenAI opened beta self-serve access to Ads Manager there. Users on the free tier and the Go plan see the ads; Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts do not.
Those eight days collapsed a distinction European advertisers had been living with all summer: reachable was not the same as registrable. Both are true now. Here is what you get, what has not changed, and what the first months are actually worth.
The 31 markets
The list is the EEA plus Switzerland: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. All 31 are on OpenAI's availability table as open to advertisers, checked on 1 September 2026. The UK opened separately back in June 2026 and is not part of this wave.
What opens, and when
| What | When | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Campaigns can target the 31 markets | Since 18 Aug 2026 | Live, verified in our account |
| Ads serve to European users (free + Go) | From 24 Aug 2026 | Live |
| European businesses open advertiser accounts | From 31 Aug 2026 | Live, beta self-serve |
The third row is the one that changed most recently, and it is the one that matters to a European company buying its own ads. Two limits ride with it, in OpenAI's own wording: the self-serve access is a beta, and it opens to advertisers in approved categories whose ads clear its policy checks. So expect an application rather than an open door, and expect regulated categories to have a harder time of it. The other routes stay open: OpenAI's Ads Solutions team, its agency partners and its technology partners all still book, and a group with an eligible entity elsewhere can still use it.
The rules that do not change
Europe joins the platform under the same account rules as every existing market, and three of them decide how launch week goes:
- +Eligibility follows the business registration country. A German company registers as a German advertiser, whatever markets it sells into.
- +The account country and currency are permanent once set, and verification checks the exact registered name against national records. Pick the registering entity before you touch the signup form.
- +There is no manager account. Your agency is invited into your account with a role; nobody can run your ads from theirs.
The full detail sits in the eligibility guide and the agency access guide, and both apply to the new markets unchanged.
Targeting and language
European campaigns target at country level. Sub-country targeting, meaning states, cities and postal codes, exists only in the US today, so a campaign for the Munich market is a Germany campaign until that changes. Creative runs in the language of the conversation you want to appear in: ChatGPT ads render inside the chat, below the answer, so a Portuguese user asking in Portuguese should meet a Portuguese ad. The creative rules, 24-character titles and 48-character copy, are in the creative specs guide and apply in every language.
The first weeks are the cheap ones
Early auctions are thin auctions. The US taught this in February 2026 and Brazil repeated it in August: the advertisers who open with a complete campaign buy attention cheaply while their competitors are still reading the verification form. Europe is in that window right now, and it is the shortest-lived advantage the platform offers. Everything on this list can be prepared in parallel with verification, well before it clears:
- +Choose the registering entity and collect its verification documents: exact legal name, registration number, and a company card billed in the account country.
- +Plan conversion tracking now: pixel plus Conversions API, three to five events. Accounts with conversion history from day one can hand bids to Maximize results weeks before accounts that waited.
- +Build the ad set to the 100-ad bar, with context hints per ad group, ready to bulk-upload the day verification clears.
The verification guide, the conversion-tracking guide and why 100 ads cover each step. For your own country's status, the 30-second eligibility checker gives the verdict, including for the markets still waiting.
Launching with us
We have run campaigns on the platform since before Europe was targetable, from our own account and our clients', which is where every number and rule on this page comes from. Access is no longer the hard part in Europe; opening with a hundred ads, working context hints and conversion tracking that reports on day one is. For a European brand that wants the full campaign live on day one, the managed service takes account, verification, creative and launch, live within 48 hours of kickoff.
