You do need to register as a business if you are located in EMEA. There is no private/personal option.
This is a huge showstopper for me and, in my opinion, anyone who wants to use it for educational purposes.
I believe it's individual VAT handling. They've solved it for EU citizens but for instance, about Russia, it still says [1]:
"In Russia, Google Cloud Platform services can be used only for business purposes. Warning: If the sole purpose for which you want to use Google Cloud Platform services has no potential economic benefit you should discontinue your use of the service"
It used to say the same thing about EU citizens for a while. The line about "no potential economic benefit" is pretty bizarre as far as far as I've seen...
>Warning: If the sole purpose for which you want to use Google Cloud Platform services has no potential economic benefit you should discontinue your use of the service"
To me this says: "Anything and everything can become a side project at any moment or be used to help support a business and therefore (in my opinion) everything can be thought of as a business or supporting a business. If there is no potential conceivable way to view anything you might ever do on the platform as conceivably pivoting into a startup or supporting a startup or any other business need in the future, or creating any economic (business) benefit then you should discontinue it. Everyone else can just say they might be a side project / pivot or be used as a business in the future, or used to support a business or otherwise produce value, since there is no way to show otherwise."
With this lens it makes perfect sense that if the SOLE purpose has NO potential (potential!!!) economic benefit (i.e. used to at least support a business or create value) then you should discontinue it. This warning applies basically to no one.
It's really an excellent sentence, I like it a lot.
Is that a T&C rule or a technical block? Because I'm in EMEA, not registered as a business, and it opened for me just fine.