If you have rooted your phone you’ve quickly found out that you can’t use it for Android Pay. Google and its partners are very careful about their Android Pay system and feel that rooted phones pose a security risk to their service and your data. Your phone will tell you “Access Denied” or “Your device is not compatible” or something similar.
But if you want to go ahead and use Android Pay on a rooted phone anyways here’s how to do it.
The key to this trick is to hide the fact that you are rooted from Google Play Services. These Google Services are the backbone of many apps and systems on your phone and if the services don’t know you’re rooted then neither will Android Pay since it relies on Google Play Services to check for it.
Follow these steps on a rooted phone:
- Download the Rootcloak Xposed module
- Install it on your phone
- Open the Rootcloak list and add both Google Play Services and Google Services Framework to it
- Clear data from Google Play Services by going to your phone’s settings. Then navigate to the following: Apps > All > Google Play Services > ‘Manage Data’. Tap clear all at the bottom
- Power down and then restart your phone
When your phone powers back up launch Android Pay and add your cards to it. It should work! But beware! There is probably a good reason why Google doesn’t want rooted phones to be able to do this. So use caution.
(Note: Some users report that Samsung phones may still not work because of their added Knox protection. Let me know if you phone does or doesn’t work using the above method.)
Tried this on a Cyanogenmod device (a Nexus) and it didn’t work. Wondering if it needs to be a stock Android build as well. :(
Doesn’t seem to work on a rooted (stock) Samsung Galaxy S5