Apple updated the age rating questionnaire in App Store Connect on 9 July 2026, adding questions about whether an app has “social media capabilities” — defined as the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a feed or similar discovery method. Answering is optional today. From September 2026, it’s required for every new app, every update, and every app submitted for notarization on alternative marketplaces. Apps that qualify get a minimum 13+ age rating and a new Social Media content descriptor on their App Store listing, regardless of what category the app is filed under.
The definition is broader than “social media” sounds in a pitch deck. A fitness app with a community feed, a marketplace with buyer reviews others can browse, a habit tracker with a shared leaderboard, a healthcare app with a patient community forum — none of those would call themselves social networks, but each plausibly meets Apple’s bar for “redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a feed.” The one carve-out: if the social features are disabled for under-13s, the app avoids the under-13 Time Allowance category, but the classification question and descriptor still apply above that age.
So what
If your product has any feature that surfaces one user’s content to other users — comments, feeds, reviews, shared boards, community discussion — this is worth checking against Apple’s definition before your next submission, not after a rejection or a surprise 13+ label lands on your store listing. It affects App Store search placement, parental control visibility, and the age gate your onboarding needs to handle. This is exactly the kind of platform-policy detail that gets missed when a build is scoped purely on features and not on App Store compliance — the kind of gap our iOS & Android work is built to catch before submission, not after. If you’re planning a release with any community or UGC element, get in touch and we’ll check it against the current rules before you build the wrong assumption in.