Hello, I am posting here after exhausting the official support channels available to developers, in the hope that someone from Apple can help review our case internally. I have also confirmed several other developers reporting the exact same situation on this forum within the past 7 days, and I would like to flag this as a broader pattern rather than an isolated incident. Summary of our situation:
We submitted a critical app update that requires both a build review and an In-App Purchase review to go live. We filed an Expedited Review Request for the build, and the build review itself has been approved without issue — every expedited request we submitted for the build was accepted. However, the In-App Purchase items associated with this update remain in review and have not been processed, which means the update cannot actually be released to users despite the build being cleared. To our knowledge, there is no expedited review process available for In-App Purchases. This appears to be a structural gap: the build can be fast-tracked, but the IAPs that the build depends on cannot.
What we have already tried:
Submitted the Expedited Review Request for the build 2–3 times, each time including a detailed explanation in the request notes asking that the associated In-App Purchases also be reviewed alongside the build. The build was approved; the IAPs were not addressed. Sent inquiries through both available email contact channels for App Review / Developer Support. No substantive response so far. As an additional attempt, we added a test IAP item and used its review notes field to write a detailed explanation of the situation, politely requesting that the IAP review be picked up. Still no movement.
Where this leaves us: The build is ready and approved, our team has done everything that the documented process allows, but the release is fully blocked on IAP review with no available escalation channel. Time-sensitive update content cannot reach our users, and we have no visibility into when, or whether, the IAP review will proceed. Within just the past 7 days, I have seen multiple posts on this forum describing the exact same pattern — build approved (often via expedited review), IAPs left pending, and no documented way to escalate the IAP side. Some of those threads were eventually resolved only after Apple staff intervened directly on the forum. What I am asking for:
Could someone from Apple please check internally whether our pending IAP submissions can be routed for review, given that the corresponding build has already been approved through expedited review? More broadly, is there any official guidance on how developers should handle the case where a build is approved expeditedly but its associated IAPs are blocked with no expedited path of their own?
I am happy to provide our Team ID, app identifier, and the specific submission references through a private channel. Thank you very much for your time, and apologies for the long post — I tried to lay out the full timeline so anyone looking into this has the complete picture.