Reporting Identity in GA4
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How to Exclude a Country in GA4
October 16, 2025
Is irrelevant traffic from certain countries skewing your Google Analytics 4 data? Maybe it’s internal teams, a market you don’t serve, or just bot traffic from a specific region.
I know with some of my clients – they just want to focus on UK data because that’s the only area they serve.
Whatever the reason, messy data leads to poor decisions.
You need a way to focus on the metrics that actually matter.
Good news—it’s simpler than you might think. You don’t need to be a GA4 wizard to clean up your reports. Here’s a breakdown of how to exclude specific countries, from a quick temporary filter to a permanent custom report.
Table of Contents
Report Section
Let’s say you’re in the middle of an analysis and just want to quickly see your data without, for example, the United Kingdom.
GA4’s standard reports give you two straightforward options for this.
Method 1: Use ‘Comparisons’ for a Side-by-Side View
This is your best bet when you want to compare traffic with and without a specific country, rather than removing it completely. It’s brilliant for context.
Here’s how you do it:
Navigate to any standard report, like the Traffic Acquisition report.
At the top, click + Add comparison.
In the builder that appears, set the dimension to Country.
Set the Match Type to exactly matches and select the country you want to isolate (e.g., “United Kingdom”).
Click Apply.
You’ll now see your data split into two views: ‘All Users’ and users from the country you selected.
This comparison will follow you as you click through other standard reports, and you can simply toggle it on again when you’re ready.
Method 2: Use ‘Add Filter’ for a Focused View
What if you just want the unwanted country gone from your view entirely? That’s where the filter comes in.
In your report, find the Add Filter button at the top (just below the report title).
Set the dimension to Country.
This time, set the Match Type to does not exactly match.
Select the country you want to exclude.
Click Apply.
Just like that, all data from that country vanishes from your report, giving you a much cleaner view.
The catch? It’s temporary. As soon as you navigate away or close the session, you’ll have to reapply it.
And let’s be honest, who has time for that every single day?
Creating a Permanent Filtered Report
If you find yourself excluding the same country day in and day out, it’s time to create a custom report. This is a more permanent solution that saves you a ton of clicks.
Tired of Filtering Every Time? Just Customise the Report
The process is almost identical to adding a temporary filter, but with one crucial difference: you save it.
Go to the report you want to modify (e.g., ‘Pages and screens’).
Click the pencil icon (Customise report) in the top-right corner.
In the panel that opens, find and click on Report filter.
Create your exclusion filter just as before (e.g., Dimension: Country, Match Type: does not exactly match, Value: “United Kingdom”).
Click Apply, and then hit the blue Save button.
Choose Save as new report. Give it a descriptive name like “Pages & Screens (Excl. UK)” and click Save.
You now have a brand new report that, by default, always excludes the country you specified.
Making It Official: Add Your New Report to the Library
Your new report is saved, but it’s not yet in your main navigation. To fix that, head to the Library section (at the bottom of the left-hand menu). You’ll find your newly created report there.
You can then edit your existing collections to add this report to your main navigation for easy, one-click access.
You can read more about customising reports here.
Collection
If you wanted to exclude a country for a specific set of reports, you could create a collection specifically for that, and include the reports you've customised.
How to Exclude Countries in GA4 ‘Explore’ Reports
What about when you’re doing deeper, custom analysis in the Explore section?
The same principles apply, but the tools are slightly different.
You have two main options here:
Use Segments: In the ‘Variables’ column, click the ‘+’ icon next to ‘Segments’ to create a new one. You can build a Session segment and use the “Exclude” condition to remove all sessions where the Country matches your chosen nation. This is powerful because you can apply this segment across various exploration tabs.
Use Filters: At the bottom of the ‘Tab Settings’ column, you’ll see a ‘Filters’ box. Simply drag the Country dimension into the box (you may need to add it to your ‘Variables’ column first) and set up your “does not exactly match” condition there. This filter only applies to the specific exploration tab you’re working on.
You can read more about building free forms here.
Comparing
Both comparison and segments can be created and used at property level. You can review these in the admin section of GA4.
The Advanced Route: When You Need a Hard Block
The methods above filter data at the reporting level—the data is still collected, you’re just choosing not to see it. This is different from excluding IP addresses.
But what if you want to prevent that data from ever being collected in the first place?
This is a much more technical task and will almost certainly require a developer’s help. The two main approaches are:
Google Tag Manager (GTM) Blocking Trigger: A developer can push country information to the data layer before GTM loads. You can then use this information in GTM to create a blocking trigger that prevents the GA4 configuration tag from firing for users in specific countries.
Server-Side Tracking: This offers even more robust control over what data gets sent to Google’s servers. The brilliant Julius from Analytics Mania has written extensively on this topic if you want to dive down that particular rabbit hole.
These are complex solutions for a specific need, but it’s good to know they exist!
Cleaning Up Your Data, Cleaning Up Your Strategy
So there you have it.
Whether you need a quick, temporary view or a permanent, custom-built report, GA4 gives you the tools to filter out the noise.
By focusing on the data that truly reflects your target audience, you can make smarter, more accurate strategic decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Can I exclude multiple countries at once in GA4?
Yes. When creating a filter or a segment, instead of using “exactly matches” or “does not exactly match,” you can use the “matches regex” (regular expression) option. You can then list the countries you want to exclude, separated by a pipe symbol (|). For example, United Kingdom|United States|Canada.
Does excluding a country in a custom report delete the data?
No, it does not. All the methods described here only affect how data is displayed in your reports. The raw data from all countries is still collected and stored in GA4. You can always view it by removing the filter or looking at a standard, unfiltered report.
What’s the main difference between a segment and a filter in an ‘Explore’ report?
A filter is simpler and applies only to the specific data visualisation you’re building in one tab. A segment is more powerful; it creates a subset of your users or sessions (e.g., “Users not from the UK”) that you can then analyse and apply across multiple tabs and different types of explorations.
Author
Hello, I'm Kyle Rushton McGregor!
I’m an experienced GA4 Specialist with a demonstrated history of working with Google Tag Manager and Looker Studio. I’m an international speaker who has trained 1000s of people on all things analytics.