Two new App Store age rating questions: Location sharing and dating features must be declared from November 16

A change Apple announced on November 2 takes effect this coming Monday, November 16, 2026. The age rating questionnaire in App Store Connect gains two new content descriptors: Shared Location and Dating and Relationships. The announcement is short, but its reach is wide. It touches not only dating apps but also maps, family safety, social, events and the fast-growing category of AI chat apps.

Here is what's changing, which apps are affected, and what to plan for in your next release.

What's changing

From November 16, the age rating questionnaire will ask two more questions:

• Shared Location: Does the app let users share their real-world location with another person or group?
• Dating and Relationships: Does the app offer features that create dating or relationship connections between real people, or a virtual companion that engages the user in sexual or romantic content?

According to Apple, you'll have to answer these whenever you submit an app update or edit the age rating questionnaire. Even if you do neither, every app must have these declarations completed by January 12, 2027.

The consequences:

• Apps that declare Dating and Relationships get a minimum rating of 18+.
• Shared Location, in Apple's words, may not affect the minimum rating in some regions. There's no automatic bump everywhere.
• Brazil is the exception. Local rules require A16 for location sharing and A18 for dating and relationships. If you think your app deserves a lower rating, say a location-sharing app built for parents and children, you can request an official rating from Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Once verified, that rating is shown on the Brazilian App Store.

Why it matters

Apple's age rating system has been getting more granular. Globally it now uses 4+, 9+, 13+, 16+ and 18+. The questionnaire already covered in-app controls such as parental controls and age assurance, plus capabilities like messaging, user-generated content, social media and unrestricted web access. The two new questions continue that direction: ratings now reflect not just what content an app contains, but what the app lets people do.

The part I find most significant is the "virtual companion" wording. An app that offers romantic or sexual conversations with an AI character lands in the same bucket as dating apps and gets 18+, even if it never matches two real people. LLM-based companion and role-play apps have multiplied over the past couple of years, and this draws a clear line for that market. Add the October App Review Guidelines update, which tightened moderation requirements around nonconsensual intimate imagery including AI-generated content, and Apple's stance on AI-driven social products is clearly getting more cautious.

Location sharing affects a much broader set of apps. A "send my location" button, live location, family tracking, group runs or rides, picking a meeting point: all of these could fall under the definition. Plenty of teams ship to Latin America, so Brazil's A16 rule may look like a footnote but can directly affect install volume there.

What it means in practice

1. Revisit this week's release plan

Every update submitted after November 16 will hit these questions. If a developer rather than a product owner usually pushes releases, they may not have the context to answer correctly. Decide now who owns the answer, so that a routine bug-fix release doesn't get stuck on a rushed or wrong age declaration.

2. Build a feature inventory

List every flow where a user's location is shown to another person or group. Don't stop at headline features. Sending a location in chat, shareable "where am I" links and community maps can all count. A quick scan of the codebase is a reasonable starting point:

# Rough scan for places where location is used or shared in an iOS project
grep -rnE "CLLocationManager|CLLocation|MKMapItem|shareLocation|liveLocation" --include="*.swift" .

This won't make the decision for you. Using location isn't the same as sharing it; a weather app reads your location but shows it to no one. But it tells you which screens to look at.

3. Document the gray areas

Apple's definitions are brief, so some cases are open to interpretation. An app that only sends location to its own server is different from one where users see each other on a map. Where you're unsure, write down your decision and the reasoning. If App Review ever asks, that record will help.

4. Work out the business impact of 18+

If your app has a dating feature or a romantic AI character and currently sits at a lower rating, moving to 18+ can shrink your audience, since accounts with content restrictions may be limited from accessing apps at that rating. You have two realistic options: move the feature into a separate app and keep the main product broadly available, or accept 18+ and adjust your marketing. Hiding the feature isn't an option. Guideline 2.5.19, introduced in October and aimed at hidden or undocumented features, carries tougher penalties for exactly that.

5. Treat Brazil separately

If you ship in Brazil and offer location sharing, your app will show as A16 there. If your audience includes teenagers or you build family apps, consider applying for an official rating through the Ministry.

Final thoughts

This isn't an API change and you won't need to write code for it. It still lands squarely in your release process. From Monday, every update will face these two questions, and after January 12 no app is expected to be missing them. Rather than leaving it to the last day, I'd suggest a half-hour meeting this week with product, legal and engineering to make sure everyone agrees on what your app actually does. Age ratings are no longer a form to fill in; they are part of product decisions.