How to search Facebook Marketplace across a wide area

How far can you search on Facebook Marketplace?

Every Marketplace search is a circle: one centre point and one radius. Facebook’s help centre says Marketplace currently allows a maximum search distance of 100 miles or kilometres from a location, and suggests entering another location to see more results.

Two more things are worth knowing:

• Listings can come from outside your circle. Facebook says that if items near your location don’t match your search, you may see listings outside your preferred distance. Check the town under each listing before you message.
• Logged out, you can’t choose the distance. When we opened Marketplace searches for Brisbane, Sydney and Toronto without logging in on 26 September 2026, Facebook showed each one as “Within 65 km”, and clicking to change it asked us to log in.

How do you change your Marketplace location?

In the iPhone or Android app:

1. Tap Menu, then Marketplace (tap See more if you can’t see it).
2. Tap the location on the right.
3. Tap the map, then move it to a new place or search for one in the bar at the top.
4. Tap Custom local radius and drag the slider to set the distance.
5. Tap Apply.

On a computer:

1. Click Marketplace in the left menu.
2. Below Filters, click the location.
3. Enter a place and the distance you’re willing to travel, then click Apply.

The address-bar shortcut. On a computer, some big cities can be reached by putting the city’s name in the web address, such as facebook.com/marketplace/sydney/, which is a quick way to look around another city. In our test (logged out) it worked for Sydney, Brisbane and Toronto. For Toowoomba, Facebook sent us to a default location instead, so use the location picker for smaller towns.

How to cover a region with several searches

Until Facebook lifts its cap, a wide search means several circles.

1. Pick centres whose circles overlap a little. With a 100 km radius, keep centres no more than about 170 km apart. A map app’s measure-distance tool helps.
2. Run the same search, with the same words and price range, from each centre.
3. Sort each one by newest (Sort by, then Date listed: Newest first), so you only read what’s new.
4. Save each one if you want Facebook to notify you, and give yourself a fixed order to check them in.

The cost is repetition: every extra centre is another list to scroll and another stream of alerts, and listings in the overlaps show up twice. Our search tips help keep each search tight enough to be worth it.

Worked examples: how many searches does a wide area take?

Distances are straight lines between city centres, rounded. We’ve used Facebook’s cap as 100 km in Australia and Canada and 100 miles in the US.

Area you want	What one search reaches	Facebook searches needed
South-east Queensland: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba	From Brisbane, the Gold Coast (about 70 km) and Sunshine Coast (about 90 km) are in. Toowoomba (about 105 km) is just out.	2: Brisbane and Toowoomba
Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo	From Melbourne, Geelong (about 65 km) is in, Ballarat (about 100 km) is on the edge and Bendigo (about 130 km) is out.	2: Melbourne and Bendigo
Sydney to Newcastle and Canberra	From Sydney, Wollongong (about 70 km) and the Central Coast (about 50 km) are in. Newcastle (about 115 km) and Canberra (about 245 km) are out.	3: Sydney, Newcastle and Canberra, and the circles still don’t meet between Sydney and Canberra
Toronto and south-west Ontario	From Toronto, Hamilton (about 60 km), Barrie (about 85 km) and Kitchener (about 90 km) are in. London (about 170 km) is out.	2: Toronto and London
Calgary to Edmonton	The two cities are about 280 km apart, with Red Deer roughly halfway.	3: Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton
Dallas to Austin and San Antonio (US)	From Dallas, Fort Worth (about 30 mi) and Waco (about 85 mi) are in. Austin (about 180 mi) is out, and San Antonio is about 75 mi beyond Austin, inside an Austin search.	2: Dallas and Austin
The Texas Triangle: add Houston (US)	Houston is about 225 mi from Dallas and 145 mi from Austin.	3: Dallas, Austin and Houston

Covering a whole country this way isn’t realistic. Australia’s mainland capitals alone are hundreds of kilometres apart, and most of the country sits outside any capital’s circle.

Can you use delivery to search beyond your radius?

Sometimes. In the app, Facebook lists delivery method among the filters you can choose on a search. Where Marketplace shipping exists, filtering for items sellers will ship can take distance out of the picture.

It depends on where you live. When we checked from Australia in September 2026, Facebook’s help centre said delivery and checkout on Marketplace weren’t available in our location, so in Australia a listing in another city still means pickup or arranging transport yourself. In the US, Meta’s Seller app, launched in July 2026, talks about sellers’ items to ship. Open Filters on a search in your own app to see whether a delivery option appears.

Before you buy from further away

A long drive raises the cost of a wasted trip, so do more of the checking before you leave.

• Check the location on the listing. Each result shows the seller’s suburb or town, such as “Gold Coast, QLD”.
• Confirm it’s still for sale on the day and get the pickup suburb before you set off.
• Ask for extra photos or a short video call of the parts that matter: the serial number, the tyres, the screen switched on.
• Add the trip to the price. Fuel, tolls and a day off can outweigh a saving of A$100.
• For cars, run the checks first. Our guide to buying a used car on Marketplace in Australia covers PPSR and registration checks.
• Don’t pay a deposit for something you haven’t seen, however far away the seller is. Our Marketplace scams guide lists the red flags.

For the rest of the alert options, start with our guide to Facebook Marketplace alerts, and for local detail see Marketplace alerts in Australia.

Sources

1. Facebook Help Centre: Find items to buy on Facebook Marketplace
2. Facebook Help Centre: Sort by distance or new listings on Facebook Marketplace
3. Facebook Help Centre: Buy something with checkout and delivery on Facebook Marketplace
4. Meta Newsroom: Introducing Seller, an app for Facebook Marketplace sellers (July 2026)
5. Our own logged-out visits to facebook.com/marketplace for Brisbane, Sydney, Toronto and Toowoomba, 26 September 2026.
6. Distances: straight-line distances between city-centre coordinates, calculated by us and rounded.