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Joining the Apple Developer Program

Nothing ships to the App Store without a Developer Program membership. It costs US$99 a year and takes anywhere from a day to a couple of weeks, so start it before you need it.

Individual or organisation?

You can enrol as an individual (your personal legal name appears as the seller on the App Store) or as an organisation (the company name appears). Individuals only need an Apple Account and a government ID for verification. Organisations additionally need:

  • Legal entity status — sole proprietorships generally enrol as individuals.
  • A D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet. Free, but allow up to a couple of weeks if your company doesn't have one yet.
  • Authority to bind the company to Apple's agreements.

Enrolling

  1. Sign in at developer.apple.com → Account with the Apple Account you want to own the membership. Turn on two-factor authentication first — it's required.
  2. Choose Enroll and follow the identity check. On iPhone/iPad the Apple Developer app can verify your ID quickly; the web flow works too.
  3. Pay the US$99/year fee. Membership activates once verification clears.

Verification is usually same-day for individuals but can stretch to weeks for organisations while D-U-N-S records and phone verification catch up. Don't schedule a launch on the other side of an unenrolled account.

What the membership unlocks

  • App Store and TestFlight distribution.
  • App Store Connect — where your app records, builds and releases live.
  • Certificates, identifiers and provisioning (largely automatic with Xcode).
  • Up to 10,000 external TestFlight testers per app.

Unlike Google Play, there is no closed-testing gate before production: once you're enrolled, the only gate between you and the store is App Review.