# Data residency

URL: /systems/trust-and-governance/data-residency · Id: `page:systems/trust-and-governance/data-residency`

> Where a Startup stores and processes its records, set once to the US or the EU, with each customer free to take its own region.

A [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) stores and processes its records in one region, `us` or `eu`, chosen before its first record. Each customer can take its own region, whatever the Startup's.

## Pick a region
Residency is a [Setting](/business/nouns/setting) with the value `us` or `eu`. A Startup inherits it from its [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) unless it sets its own.

The Setting locks once the first record exists, so pick it at the start. To set it, tell your agent "keep the data in the EU", or call [`Setting.update`](/business/nouns/setting/update).

## What stays in region
| Stays in region | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Records | The owner database and every step that reads it |
| [Files](/business/nouns/file) | Uploads, documents and media |
| Analytics | The analytics copy of every [Event](/business/nouns/event) |
| Backups | Every copy and replica, and the archive copy, which sits in a second region inside the same residency |
| Model calls | Routed to models served inside the region |

Every [Action](/business/nouns/action) records the region it ran in, so the answer to "where was this processed" is a record, not a promise.

## A customer in another region
A [Customer](/business/nouns/customer) of your [App](/business/nouns/app) gets its own [Tenant](/business/nouns/tenant), and a Tenant takes its own region when it is [provisioned](/business/nouns/tenant/provision). A US Startup can serve an EU clinic whose records never leave the EU.

## Visitors without consent
A [Visitor](/business/nouns/visitor) who has not given [Consent](/business/nouns/consent) is counted by a hash that rotates daily. No cookie is set, and no IP address is stored.

## Who else processes it
The platform's [subprocessors](/systems/trust-and-governance/subprocessors) are named in one table, each under a data processing agreement. A new one appears 30 days before it processes any personal data, and a Customer with a data processing agreement may object in that window.

## Answering where data lives
The [Privacy](/systems/privacy) and [Compliance](/systems/compliance) [Systems](/business/nouns/system) answer a customer's data-location questions from these records. GDPR applies when a Startup processes personal data of people in the EU or UK, and the [framework map](/systems/trust-and-governance/frameworks) shows the [Controls](/business/nouns/control) that meet it.

## Next
- [Your data](/systems/trust-and-governance/your-data): ownership, export and erasure.
- [Residency](/code/platform/residency): the Setting in code.