Is anyone else seeing this? Apple's documentation says "Your distribution certificate is valid for three years from when it was issued" (https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/distribute-proprietary-in-house-apps-depce7cefc4d/web).
On 2026-10-13 our automation created a new iOS Distribution certificate on our Apple Developer Enterprise Program account through the App Store Connect API (POST /v1/certificates, type IOS_DISTRIBUTION, with a CSR). The certificate expires 2027-11-12, which is about 395 days. Our previous enterprise iOS Distribution certificate, created in April 2025, got the full 3 years (expires 2028-04-28).
To rule out our automation, I created another iOS Distribution certificate manually in the Developer portal on 2026-10-16. It also had a validity of about 396 days. We have revoked both so they can't be used.
Questions:
- Has the validity period for Enterprise Program iOS Distribution certificates changed? If so, where is it documented?
- Is anyone else seeing ~395-day certificates on Enterprise accounts, from the portal or the API?
- Is there a supported way to request a specific validity period?
I have also opened a case with Apple Developer Support (case ID 102999420277).
Sorry it’s taken so long to reply here. My goal was to have something definitive to say, and various things have delayed that [1].
1- Has the validity period for Enterprise Program iOS Distribution certificates changed?
Yes.
We recently updated the Apple Platform Deployment guide to say:
Your distribution certificate is valid for 13 months from when it was issued or until your Apple Developer Enterprise Program membership expires, whichever comes first.
Specifically, start at the top and navigate via Distribute content > Distribute apps > Distribute proprietary in-house apps.
IMPORTANT You might not see the updated text due to a localisation delay. In my case I get redirected to the en-gb version of the page, which hasn’t yet been updated with the new text.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] To the point where I eventually gave up waiting, as you’ll see towards the end of my reply.
