App Store age rating questionnaire (2026)

What changed in 2026

Apple overhauled the age rating system. The differences that matter when you fill it out:

• Five bands instead of five different ones. The system is now 4+, 9+, 13+, 16+, and 18+.
• The old 12+ and 17+ bands were removed, replaced by 13+, 16+, and 18+ to make the ratings more granular.
• The questionnaire gained new mandatory questions covering in-app controls, app capabilities such as messaging and user-generated content, medical or wellness content, and violent themes.
• Existing apps had to answer the updated questions in App Store Connect by January 31, 2026 to keep submitting updates. Apps that did not answer were blocked from submitting new updates until they did.
• The updated ratings are reflected on devices running iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26, and watchOS 26.

If you are shipping a new app today, you simply answer the current questionnaire. There is no old version to migrate from.

How to answer the questionnaire

The age rating is set by your answers, not chosen directly. In App Store Connect:

1. Open your app and go to the age rating section of the app information.
2. Answer each question about content honestly. This covers things like cartoon or realistic violence, mature or suggestive themes, profanity, simulated gambling, horror, and the newer questions on in-app controls, app capabilities, and medical or wellness content.
3. Review the rating the questionnaire produces from those answers.
4. Optionally set a higher minimum age. If your app is intended for an older audience than the content alone implies, for example because of how it is used, you can raise the minimum age.
5. Save it as part of your app version's metadata before submitting.

Apple offers parental controls and Screen Time around these ratings, which is part of why accuracy matters beyond just passing review.

Answer honestly

The age rating is a statement about your app's content, and Apple expects it to be true. Getting it wrong cuts both ways:

• Rate too low and your app can be rejected for a rating that does not match its content, and parents relying on the rating are misled.
• Rate too high without reason and you shrink your audience and may trigger restrictions that do not need to apply.

If the app changes in a way that affects content, such as adding user-generated content or a chat feature, revisit the questionnaire so the rating stays accurate. As with the rest of submission, answering the questionnaire is not approval. Apple reviews every app, so submitted is not approved.

Where AppFlight fits

The age rating questionnaire is a truthful description of what your app contains, so the answers are yours to give. AppFlight runs the surrounding submission flow: it builds and signs the app, uploads it, and submits for review with your metadata in place. Because an inaccurate rating is a common rejection trigger, the honest answer is the one that gets the app through, and AppFlight handles the build, the resubmission if Apple flags something, and the rest of the journey around it.