Apple adds Shared Location and Dating questions to age ratings on Nov. 16. Sort your app before the next update

Two new questions, one hard rule

Apple posted a short developer notice on November 2: starting November 16, 2026, the age rating questionnaire in App Store Connect gets two new content descriptors.

• Shared Location: "Sharing of real-world location with another person or group."
• Dating and Relationships: "Features that enable dating or relationship connections between real people and/or a virtual companion that engages a user in sexual or romantic content."

You have to answer them when you submit an app update or change your age rating questionnaire. Every app has to have them answered by January 12, 2027, whether or not you ship an update.

The hard rule is in the next line. Apps that include Dating and Relationships get a minimum age rating of 18+. Shared Location, Apple says, may not change the minimum rating in some regions. Brazil is the exception Apple names: local rules require A16 for Shared Location and A18 for Dating and Relationships.

The question isn't whether your app is a dating app. It's whether any feature in it does what the definition says.

Five apps, sorted

The definitions are short, which makes them easy to read and easy to misjudge. Here's how we'd think about five common kinds of app. These are our reading of Apple's wording, not Apple's rulings, so treat them as a starting point for your own decision.

A family locator. Parents see where their children are. That's real-world location shared with another person, so Shared Location applies. In Brazil it means A16 by default. Apple specifically mentions this case: if your app's location sharing is designed for parents and children and you think it deserves a lower rating in Brazil, you can ask Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) for an official rating, which then shows on the Brazilian App Store.

A delivery or ride app. The customer watches the driver move on a map. Someone's real-world location is being shared with another person, so read the definition closely and decide on purpose. Many teams will answer yes. If your product team concludes no, write down why.

A fitness or running app with live sharing. If a runner can share a live route with friends or a club, that feature fits the Shared Location definition, even if most users never turn it on. The descriptor is about what the app can do, not what most people do with it.

A social or community app with a "meet people" corner. If any part of the app helps real people make dating or relationship connections, Dating and Relationships may apply, and with it 18+. This is the one to look at carefully, because a single feature can change who's allowed to find your whole app.

An AI chat companion. If the companion can engage a user in sexual or romantic content, Apple's definition covers it directly: "a virtual companion that engages a user in sexual or romantic content." That's 18+. If you've been treating romantic roleplay as a prompt setting rather than a product feature, this is the moment to decide which it is.

Where teams will get this wrong

Three mistakes are worth heading off.

Answering from the marketing page. The person filling in App Store Connect often knows the app from its description, not from its settings screens. A feature buried two menus deep still counts. Ask the engineer who built location or chat features to review the answers.

Waiting for the deadline. The January 12 date is the last day for apps that don't update. But any update after November 16 needs the answers first. If you have a fix scheduled for the holidays, you'll meet these questions then, at the worst possible time to argue about an 18+ rating.

Forgetting that the rating changes the audience. An 18+ rating isn't just a label; it changes who can download the app on a device with age restrictions turned on. If one feature would push your app to 18+, that's a product decision: keep the feature, gate it differently, or move it out. Make that call deliberately, with time to build the change, not in the submission form.

We wrote about getting through App Review on the first try. Accurate metadata is a big part of that, and these descriptors are now part of the metadata.

A short plan for the next release

Here's the order we'd work in:

1. List every feature that shares location with another person or group, and every feature that connects people for dating or relationships or offers a companion with romantic content.
2. Decide Shared Location and Dating and Relationships answers for each app, and write a one-line reason for each.
3. If Dating and Relationships applies, decide whether the app should be 18+ or whether the feature should change.
4. If you have users in Brazil and Shared Location applies, check whether an official MJSP rating request makes sense for your app.
5. Update the questionnaire before your next submission after November 16, or by January 12, 2027 at the latest.

If you're also juggling other platform dates this winter, we've written about the iOS 27 SDK deadline. It's worth putting both on the same calendar.

If you can't decide

Some apps sit on the line. A neighborhood app where people can share where they are for a meetup. A wellness app with a "talk to someone" companion that sometimes drifts toward romance. In those cases, the honest answer usually comes from asking what the feature is for and what it can actually do, not what you hope it does. If it can do the thing in the definition, assume Apple will see it that way, and plan around that.

Write the reasoning down either way. A two-line note in your release docs ("Shared Location: yes, live route sharing in Clubs; Dating: no, no romantic or relationship features") costs nothing and saves the next person from reopening the question every time someone new fills in the form.

Our mobile applications team helps product teams make these calls and ship the changes they lead to, including gating features by age or region. If you'd like a second look at your answers before the next release, get in touch and tell us which features you're unsure about.

Related work: Spin Market.