Cannot Update Age Rating

Hi there, thank you reaching out. You'll be able to update your app's age ratings when you submit a new version of your app. Please find more information about app properties that can be localized and edited at any time without submitting a new version of your app here.

What does submit new version mean? Is it a release version above the current version of the application in the app store?

Hi App Store Connect Engineer

I just submitted a new version of the app and filled in this questionnaire when sending my App for Review. My new version is accepted in the Review and it is marked Ready for Distribution, but my apps page is still showing Age Rating as UnRated???

Please see if anything is wrong with your system?

I was able to change the age rating by making minor changes to my original app, checking “Yes” for the “Unrestricted Web Access“ question, uprating the age to 18 yrs and resubmitting. The app has no objectionable materials and aimed at adult and teen windsurfers and kite-boarders. This process seems a bit contrived, but it worked for me. Not sure it was necessary to actually change the code. Re-archiving and validating the original code may have been enough.

Does this age reporting requirement apply to TestFlight apps?

So, just to confirm:

• Apple sent an email to developers with the subject: "Final reminder: Answer the updated age ratings questions".
• That email says: "We’re reaching out because you have not provided responses to the updated age ratings questions in the App Information section of your app in App Store Connect. If you don’t answer these questions by January 31, 2026, you won’t be able to submit app updates in App Store Connect."

Right, so if we don't submit these new age ratings we cannot submit new app updates after January 31st 2026, but in order for us to change those age ratings we have to submit new versions of our apps?

Am I really being told to build and archive a new version of each of my apps just to update the age ratings?

This is what I currently see on one of my apps: so this is great...

And, just to make it even more complex than it needs to be, the email also says this: "Please also note that the Texas SB2420 legislation goes into effect January 1, 2026. Under this law, making an age rating change to apps distributed in Texas would be considered a significant change. If you update your age rating after this date, you may need to trigger the significant change consent process." Which means that even if you don't need to submit a new version of your app because you haven't made any changes, doing so after January 1st 2026 will require you to "trigger" some other process?

All this just to change the age ratings on our apps that are already on the App Store?

Why not just let us change the age ratings and confirm that they apply to the version currently on the App Store?!

The App Store Connect Engineer's reply in August '25 links to this page, which clearly shows that App Information > Rating is not editable, and thus requires a new version of an app to be submitted.

Why? Why do we have to submit a new version of our apps - I have seven on the App Store - just to add new ratings? (Changing existing ones, maybe, okay, but these are new ratings.) Does the App Review team actually check each and every app update to confirm that they adhere to the exact ratings you select? Really?

This sort of obstacle really drives me nuts. There's no reason it needs to be this difficult.

I'm having the exact same issue. I complained about this when this requirement was first promulgated, and here it is happening again. I do not have a new version of any of my apps to submit at this time; does this mean that I cannot update my age ratings now, and that therefore I will never be allowed to update any of my apps ever again???

What in the blue-eyed tunket is going on here????

Same concerns here. I have over a dozen apps and it's not practical to submit new builds for every one just to update rating metadata on AppStoreConnect. This has got to be a serious goof on Apple's part.

What happens if we submit a new version of the app after the deadline and at that time update the Age Rating?

If I am reading this correctly:

Before January 31:

• you can submit new app versions without updating the rating
• but you should update the rating if you do

After January 31:

• before you can submit the app, you must update the rating

You don't have to immediately push a new version, apps will not be removed or blocked.

It's only if you want to push a new version that you will then be stopped until you update the age rating.

I had an app that I 'Removed from Sale' months back - and I still got that notification too.

two questions are still unanswered:

Q1. If we do not submit a new binary and just leave the new age rating either I) auto computed by apple or Ii) updated manually by adding a new release without actually submitting the release for review

Do these count?

Q2. What happens if an app doesn't have new age ratings after 31 Jan 2026? Delisted? Or blocked from all future releases? Or can only submit after answering new age ratings?

the instructions dont make sense. I cannot amend the age rating of our app. if as a commenter has stated it only applies to new apps why doesnt it say so.

If you do not update the ge rating and submit a new version before Jan 31 2025, the next time that you need to update that app it will trigger a "significant change" which presumably a more difficult review process. This is specified at the end of the email that you received from Apple.

"Please also note that the Texas SB2420 legislation goes into effect January 1, 2026. Under this law, making an age rating change to apps distributed in Texas would be considered a significant change. If you update your age rating after this date, you may need to trigger the significant change consent process."

Huh? The Texas law is 1 Jan not 31 Jan.

Also you don't have to submit a new version. Just add a new release and update the age ratings, I guess, before 1 Jan 2026

@mattn

• Go to App Store Connect.
• Click Apps to see the screen with all your apps' icons.
• Click one of them.
• At the top left, there's a white plus button in a blue circle. Click that.
• Give a new version number. If you're on 2.0.5, enter 2.0.6.
• Close that dialog. You have created a new release.
• Click App Information on the left-hand side.
• The button by Age Ratings that used to say "View" will now be "Edit". Click Edit.
• Make your selections and confirm the dialog.

That's all you have to do, but you have to do it for all of your apps.You do not have to submit the new version, and you do not have to add a new binary.

I can't see that your question needs an answer now since the steps you have to go through to fix this issue are actually quite easy.

Apple made this a completely stupid process. Their emails were written horribly, and just created confusion. Well done, Apple... ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@darkpaw

Interesting. Could you share where you found that it’s not necessary to submit a new version or upload a new binary?

I’m asking because if that’s the case, it changes things a lot compared to the usual process.

Do you know if this comes from an official Apple source or from another site? If you have a link, that would be great.

Thanks!

I just found that creating the new version and editing the ratings made the warnings at the top of the screen go away.

No Apple employee on here has offered the actual steps, specific information, or answers to any of our questions, so everyone here is just doing trial and error. If what I've done is wrong, then it's Apple's fault in two ways:

1. They didn't explain this process correctly at all;
2. The App Store Connect website removed the warnings when I made those new versions, so Apple's developers wrote it to do that.

"App Store Connect Engineer" said this (it's the accepted answer):

You'll be able to update your app's age ratings when you submit a new version of your app.

"New version", not "new binary".

What about this poupup when Age Ratings is edited:

It would be great if an Apple employee could explain this step by step and clear up any doubts we have about it.

Make not sense submitting a new binary to update the Age Ratings form.

@crexon where does this pop up show? everyone is experiencing that when u update the age ratings without needing to submit binary, and the banner/flag goes away

i just confirmed with my apps. there is no such pop up.

@SgDeveloper

I have seen from "Juanjo Valiño", and he shared this screenshot:

I am skeptical that initiating a new version in App Store Connect (without actually creating and submitting a new version) is an acceptable solution. There are numerous version-dependent metadata inputs like this in App Store Connect, and they only become active once an app is submitted for review and approved.

@s219 i literally called Apple yesterday and they told me there is no need to submit a new binary. just initiate a new version would do..

this is soooo confusing.

Not only is this mind-bogglingly ridiculous, it literally contradicts Apple's posted information at the top of the "App Information page in the Developer Dashboard: "To make changes to the app name, category, or privacy policy, create a new app version. All other changes will be immediately available." Hmm, apparently not. Despite the doomsaying tone of Apple's email to all its app developers, it would seem that there is no urgency to do anything. If we ever need to release an app update, then we'd need to update the app's age ratings, which is essentially already part of applying for a new app release...so in essence this is Apple crying a bit of wolf in order to force us through unnecessary hoops.