Required from September 2026

Apple's five capability questions, and what each one costs you

“Beginning in September 2026, responses will be required when submitting new apps or updates to the App Store, or when submitting apps for notarization for alternative distribution.”

Answer yes to social media capabilities and you take a minimum 13+ rating, a Social Media descriptor on your product page, and placement in the iOS 27 Social Media Time Allowance category where parents' screen-time limits apply to you. Answer no and risk a rejection or a post-hoc rating change. App Store Connect gives you no examples page, no pre-check and no sandbox.

The part most developers get wrong

Plain user-generated content is 4+. Plain chat is 4+. Neither forces 13+ on its own. Only the feed or discovery shape does — a surface where one user's content is redistributed, amplified or made more visible to others.

Apple's definition is really two conditions that must both hold:

User-generated content — a user made it
A discovery or amplification surface — a feed, browse, search, gallery or leaderboard, or a verb like like, comment, react, repost, follow

A photo picker, a backend, or a share-sheet button gives you the first without the second. That is not social media.

And watch the 16+ trap: Unrestricted Web Access has a higher minimum than Social Media. One in-app web view that can reach a URL you didn't choose costs you more rating than a full social feed does.

The five questions

Question	Minimum rating
Social Media	13+
Unrestricted Web Access	16+
User-Generated Content	4+
Messaging and Chat	4+
Advertising	4+

Social Media — minimum 13+

Does your app include social media capabilities?

Apple: “Redistribution, amplification, or interaction with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method that visibly spreads content to many users.”
May include: users reposting, liking, commenting, reacting, or making user-generated content more visible through a social feed, community, search, or other sharing and discovery tools

Minimum age rating of 13+.
A Social Media content descriptor on your App Store product page.
Placement in the iOS 27 Social Media Time Allowance category, where parents' screen-time limits apply to your app.
If you are Made for Kids: incompatible. Made for Kids requires a calculated 4+/9+ rating and is permanent once approved.

Apple has published two definitions of this

Reference page: “Redistribution, amplification, or interaction with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method that visibly spreads content to many users.”

News post, 9 July 2026: “the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method”

Apple's reference page ends the definition with "...that visibly spreads content to many users". The 9 July 2026 news post drops that clause. If your feed is friends-only or otherwise limited in reach, the two texts disagree about whether you are in scope — and Apple has not said which governs.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/age-ratings-values-and-definitions

Unrestricted Web Access — minimum 16+

Can users navigate to any webpage within your app?

Apple: “Users can navigate to any webpage within the app or freely browse the web.”
May include: embedded browser functionality or browser app

Minimum age rating of 16+ — higher than Social Media.
Routinely missed: one WKWebView that can reach an arbitrary URL costs more rating than a full social feed does.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/age-ratings-values-and-definitions

User-Generated Content — minimum 4+

Does your app broadly distribute content created by users?

Apple: “Includes the broad distribution of content created by users as a component of the app's intended user experience.”
May include: broadly distributed videos, photos, text, and/or audio created by users of the app

Minimum age rating of 4+ — on its own, UGC costs you nothing.
But UGC is one of the two legs of Social Media. Add a discovery or amplification surface on top and you are at 13+.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/age-ratings-values-and-definitions

Messaging and Chat — minimum 4+

Can users directly communicate with one another in your app?

Apple: “Users can directly communicate with one another through features within the app.”
May include: text, voice and/or video chat, direct and/or group messaging, or public posting

Minimum age rating of 4+ — chat on its own does not force 13+.
Apple's own examples for this question include "public posting", which also reads on Social Media. Answering yes here does not answer Social Media for you.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/age-ratings-values-and-definitions

Advertising — minimum 4+

Does your app show paid promotion of products or services?

Apple: “Paid promotion of products or services within the app.”
May include: banner ads, video and playable ads, rich media ads, or native ad formats

Minimum age rating of 4+.
Included because the questionnaire asks it and an ad SDK is trivially detectable — not because it is a rating risk.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/age-ratings-values-and-definitions

Social Media Disabled for Users Under 13

Apple: “Users under 13 don't have access to social media capabilities. At a minimum, the Declared Age Range API is called to check users' age ranges before enabling social media features. Only age-appropriate UGC is delivered.”

If you take this option, Apple requires that the Declared Age Range API is called — an import with no call site does not qualify.

Apple contradicts itself on what this buys you

Apple's reference page lists this row with a minimum rating of 13+. Apple's 8 June 2026 news post says your overall questionnaire responses govern and "may result in a rating lower than 13+". These cannot both be true. If a sub-13 rating is the reason you are taking the carve-out, do not assume you get it — the only way to know today is to answer the questionnaire in App Store Connect and read the calculated rating before you submit.

Reference page: minimum rating 13+.
News post, 8 June 2026: “If you indicate that your app or game includes social media capabilities but they are disabled for anyone under 13, it won't be included in the Time Allowance category for Social Media for users under 13. You'll also need to use the Declared Age Range API (at a minimum) to check users' age ranges. If you select this option, your overall responses in the age rating questionnaire determine your age rating and may result in a rating lower than 13+.”

Still unknown

Apple has published a month, not a day. Treat 1 September 2026 as the date.
Whether watchOS-only, tvOS-only, visionOS-only and Mac Catalyst submissions get the same questionnaire is unverified.
What happens to a live app that never answers — blocked from updating, or delisted — is unverified.

Check your own app

shipgate is a free, zero-dependency CLI that predicts each of these answers from your Xcode project with file:line evidence, computes the resulting rating, and checks whether your under-13 carve-out is actually wired. It is a classifier plus a short interview, not an oracle — reach and server-driven features are things no static scan can see, and it says so per finding.

github.com/yiwenluo-gogogo/shipgate · MIT