Mac owners in the US can now extend their warranty beyond three years

In the past, Apple computers have come with a limited one-year warranty you can extend by purchasing the company’s AppleCare+ service. Doing so not only protects your computer for a longer period of time, but also covers it for accidental damage and gives you access to 24/7 technical support. Previously, there was no way you could extend your warranty beyond the three years offered through AppleCare+ but that’s now changing.

In a new support page spotted by MacRumors, the company says customers in the US can extend the AppleCare+ plan on their Mac, provided they pay to renew the coverage within 30 days of their original plan ending. The ongoing coverage will continue to renew annually until a customer cancels it. The support page doesn’t mention any limit to how long people can continue to extend their plan, so we’ve reached out to Apple for more information. We’ll update this article when we hear back from the company.

With Macs, AppleCare+ covers up to two incidents of accidental damage every 12 months. Display issues and external damage come with a $99 service fee, while more serious issues cost $299 to repair. In other words, while you’re still paying to get your Mac fixed, the cost is a lot less than what out-of-warranty repairs will set you back.

Outside the US, it’s currently not possible to extend the warranty on a Mac computer beyond three years. However, people in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and the UK can extend the AppleCare+ plan on their iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch on a monthly basis beyond the original two years of protection. That’s something people in the US can now do as well. As with the Mac extension, you need to purchase the additional protection within 30 days of original plan ending. Lastly, Apple is also making AppleCare+ available for its streaming devices. The plan covers the new Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD for three years.