App Store and Google Play compliance deadline calendar

The next hard deadline is 31 August 2026, when Google Play stops accepting new apps and updates that target below Android 16 (API level 36). After that, 30 September carries two separate Google requirements, and Apple's social media age rating answers become mandatory sometime in September without a published day.

Every row below was read from an Apple or Google page on 17 August 2026, and each carries its own source. Where a store has announced a month but not a day, the Status column says so rather than picking one.

Next 90 days

Date Store What changes Who it hits Status
26 Aug 2026 Google Play Age-Restricted Content and Functionality policy expanded to anonymous chat and random chat apps Chat apps Confirmed
26 Aug 2026 Google Play Families Policy Requirements expanded to prohibit anonymous chat app developers targeting children Chat apps in Families Confirmed
26 Aug 2026 Google Play Child Safety Standards policy expanded to anonymous chat and random chat apps Chat apps Confirmed
26 Aug 2026 Google Play Geofencing removed as an approved foreground service use case; use the Geofence API instead Location apps Confirmed
31 Aug 2026 Google Play New apps and updates must target Android 16 (API 36). Wear OS and Automotive need API 35, TV and XR need API 34 Every Android app Confirmed
Sept 2026 Apple Answers to the social media age rating questions required for new apps, updates, and notarization for alternative distribution Every iOS app Month only, no day published
30 Sept 2026 Google Play Play apps must be registered in Play Console. Unregistered apps risk global removal Every Play app Confirmed
30 Sept 2026 Android Developer verification enforced in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, on certified devices running Android 7 or later Apps distributed in those four countries, any channel Confirmed
Oct 2026 Apple Korea: "Infrequent profanity and crude humor" and "Infrequent mature or suggestive themes" move from an age rating of All to 12+ Apps on the Korean storefront Month only, no day published
1 Nov 2026 Google Play Final date for apps granted a target API 36 extension Apps with an approved extension Confirmed

2027

Date Store What changes Who it hits Status
27 Jan 2027 Google Play Contacts Permissions policy: apps that do not need broad contacts access must use the Android Contact Picker Apps reading contacts Confirmed
27 Jan 2027 Google Play Location Permissions policy: the location button becomes the recommended minimum scope for precise location Apps using precise location Confirmed
27 Jan 2027 Google Play SMS and Call Log Permissions policy: READ_CALL_LOG no longer permitted for account verification via phone call. Use the Digital Credentials API or the SMS Retriever API Apps verifying accounts by call Confirmed
1 Feb 2027 Google Play Updates targeting Android 15 (API 35) or higher must support 16 KB memory page sizes on 64-bit devices Apps shipping native code Confirmed
2027 Android Developer verification expands "globally to all apps on certified devices" Every Android app, any channel Year only, no date published

Recently passed, in case you are catching up

Half the people reading a calendar are late for something rather than early. These have already taken effect.

Date Store What changed
16 Oct 2024 Apple Digital Services Act trader status required to submit app updates in the EU
17 Feb 2025 Apple Apps without trader status removed from the EU App Store until verified
31 Jan 2026 Apple Responses to the updated age rating questions required to avoid an interruption when submitting updates
28 Apr 2026 Apple Uploads must be built with Xcode 26 or later, using an SDK for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26 or watchOS 26
27 May 2026 Google Play Account Transfer policy: developer account transfers must use the official Transfer ownership workflow in Play Console
4 Jun 2026 Apple Texas SB 2420 age assurance applies to new Apple Accounts in Texas, including parental consent for downloads and significant changes
12 Aug 2026 Apple Korea: apps with an official GRAC rating can override their Korean App Store age rating by supplying a GRAC Rating Classification Number with the next version submission

The four rows that will actually cost you something

A calendar is only useful if it tells you where to spend the fortnight.

31 August, target API 36. This is the one with teeth, because the check happens at upload and there is no appeal. Dump the manifest from your last shipped bundle and read the number rather than trusting the build file. Raising the target switches on the Android 16 behaviour changes, and edge-to-edge enforcement, predictive back, and the loss of orientation locks on displays 600dp and wider are the three that break real apps.

30 September, app registration. The phrase in Google's policy text is "global removal from Google Play", which makes this the highest-consequence, lowest-effort row on the page. Google says 99% of apps were registered automatically. Open your Play Console Home page and confirm yours was.

30 September, developer verification. Only enforced in four countries this year, but the identity work behind it, especially a D-U-N-S number for an organisation account, takes up to 30 days on Google's own estimate. If you are heading for the 2027 global expansion, that lead time is the reason to start now rather than next summer.

September, Apple's age rating answers. No build, no review, no cost. It is a form in App Information, and it will block a submission the moment you need to ship a fix. Clear it for every app in the account, including the dormant ones.

What is deliberately not on this calendar

Undated announcements. Apple's new App Store creative assets are due for a "fall launch" and Google's target API extension forms were promised "later this year". Both are real, neither is a date, and putting a guess in a table is how bad dates spread.

Dates circulating without a source. The clearest current example is the claim that US external purchase link reporting and service fees begin on 1 October 2026. That date appears nowhere in Apple's developer news feed, on its Upcoming Requirements page, in App Store Connect Help, or in the App Store Review Guidelines. A US link-out commission genuinely is being litigated and Apple has proposed rates in a court filing, but no rate has been approved and no start date exists. It stays off the calendar until it is on an Apple page.

Apple's Upcoming Requirements page has nothing future-dated at all right now. As of 17 August 2026, every entry on it is prefixed "Since". That is worth knowing, because it means Apple's forward-looking dates currently live only in individual news posts, which is why the September age rating requirement is easy to miss.

Regional age assurance laws. Apple has published separate requirements for Texas, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Utah, Louisiana and Vietnam. They involve real engineering, including the Declared Age Range API and the Significant Change API, but they are jurisdiction-specific rather than store-wide, and a single calendar row would misrepresent them. If you ship to any of those, read Apple's post for that jurisdiction directly.

How to keep this current yourself

Three pages carry almost everything, and checking them monthly takes ten minutes:

Add Google's target API level page and the Android developer verification page if you ship Android, because both carry dates that do not appear on the policy deadlines list.

AppSubmit tracks these dates against the apps in your account and tells you which of your own builds are affected, which is the part a calendar cannot do. The calendar itself is above, it is free, and copying it into your own project tracker is a better use of ten minutes than bookmarking it.

Last reviewed: 17 August 2026. Every row was checked against a primary Apple or Google page on that date. If you are reading this a long way after it, verify the next deadline in your path before acting on it.

Sources

Last reviewed 2026-08-17. Apple and Google change their rules without notice, so check anything decision-critical against their live documentation.