App Store: control the mandatory age-rating questionnaire
Beginning in September 2026, Apple requires answers to the age-rating questionnaire when submitting a new app, an update, or an app for notarization for alternative distribution. For an enterprise, the form becomes a release control that needs an owner, evidence and review.
1. What Apple requires in September
Apple had already made the expanded questionnaire available for review in App Store Connect. The company now states that, beginning in September 2026, answers are required when submitting new apps or updates to the App Store and when submitting apps for notarization for alternative distribution.
The questionnaire includes questions about social-media capabilities. Apple defines this as the ability to redistribute, amplify or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or a similar discovery mechanism. An affected app displays a corresponding descriptor on its App Store product page.
2. Why this is more than App Store Connect administration
An incorrect answer can create a gap between the app's actual behavior, its public rating and the internal compliance record. The person publishing the app may not know the details of moderation, minor accounts, age-dependent feature availability or changes shipped by product teams.
The control therefore needs to connect the product owner, engineering, legal or compliance, and the App Store Connect role holder. The rating should be reviewed when a feature changes, not merely when the portal prevents a submission.
3. What does this change for a Belgian or French organization?
For a small app publisher, the immediate task is to prevent an urgent update from being blocked because no validated answer is available. A mid-sized or large enterprise should add the questionnaire to its release pipeline, including when several brands, subsidiaries or suppliers share publishing responsibilities.
Public bodies and regulated organizations in Belgium, France and the European Union should retain the rationale for each answer and the identity of the approver. Apple's rule does not replace local legal analysis: it creates another publishing record that must remain consistent with the functionality users can actually access.
4. Underside analysis: make the rating a release artifact
Our view is that questionnaire answers should become a versioned artifact for every release, alongside change notes, test results and production approval. A standalone screenshot from App Store Connect is insufficient if nobody can trace the answer back to the app's functional version.
For apps distributed outside the App Store in Europe, notarization does not remove this control. The requirement belongs in distribution decisions and the role model discussed in our analysis of Apple's new terms for apps in the European Union.
5. Control plan before the next submission
- Identify the relevant apps and channels: App Store, updates and alternative distribution with notarization.
- Assign an owner for the answers and a business or compliance approver.
- Map user-content, sharing and social-feed functions, including age-dependent restrictions.
- Retain answers with the app version, date, functional evidence and approval.
- Add a questionnaire review to release checklists and emergency-change procedures.
- Keep App Store Connect roles to the minimum required and document a backup owner.
Objective: prevent a mandatory form from becoming a release blocker or an uncontrolled public statement.
Structure your Apple app releasesOfficial source: Apple Developer — Age rating questionnaire now includes social media questions (July 9, 2026; requirement effective beginning September 2026).