How Do I Publish My App on the App Store and Google Play in 2026? Fees, Review Times and Rejection Traps

The store review is rarely what delays a mobile launch in 2026. Accounts, testing rules and declarations are. Apple states that on average 90% of submissions are reviewed in under 24 hours, yet teams still lose weeks because the D-U-N-S number was requested too late, a new personal Google Play account ran into the 14-day closed testing rule, or the reviewer could not get past the login screen. This guide walks through the real release sequence on both stores, using the requirements Apple and Google publish as of October 2026, in the order our mobile team runs them when shipping an app.

Decision one is the account type, and it decides your timeline. On Apple, individuals and sole proprietors enroll with a personal Apple Account that has two-factor authentication turned on, and Apple displays that person's legal name as the seller on the App Store. In Apple's terms a Turkish sole proprietorship (şahıs şirketi) is a sole proprietor, so the app is published under the owner's own name. A limited or joint-stock company (Ltd. Şti. or A.Ş.) enrolls as an organization: it must be a legal entity that can sign contracts with Apple (DBAs, fictitious business names and branches are not accepted), it needs a D-U-N-S number, it needs a public, working website on a domain associated with the company, and the person enrolling must have the authority to bind the company legally. The Apple Developer Program costs 99 USD per year, charged in local currency where Apple offers it, and the exact amount is shown during enrollment.

Google Play has its own split. Registration is a one-time 25 USD fee paid by card, and Google does not accept prepaid cards. Google requires an organization account for financial products and services, health apps, VPN services and government apps, so a fintech or clinic app cannot launch from a personal account at all. Organization accounts need a D-U-N-S number, a company phone number and website, and contact details verified with one-time passwords. New personal accounts must also prove access to a real Android device by completing verification in the Play Console mobile app on a non-rooted phone running Android 10 or later.

The rule behind most 'why is my app not live yet' questions is Google's closed test. Google's help center states that developers with personal accounts created after 13 November 2023 must run a closed test with a minimum of 12 testers who have been opted in continuously for at least 14 days. Only then can you apply for production access from the Play Console Dashboard, answering questions about the closed test, the app's design and its production readiness, and Google says that review typically takes seven days or less. Two practical consequences. First, recruit more than 12 testers, because the requirement is 12 people opted in continuously and a few dropouts take you back under the line. Second, have the testers actually use the app and send feedback, because the application asks what you learned from the test. If you are a company, the cleaner path is an organization account: the published requirement applies to personal accounts.

Request the D-U-N-S number on the first day of the project, not in the week of launch. It is free. Apple says to allow up to 5 business days for Dun & Bradstreet to issue the number and up to 2 more business days for Apple to receive it, and to contact D&B if the process takes longer than two weeks. Google is blunter: it warns the process can take up to 30 days and says it will not grant exemptions or extensions to organization accounts that fail to provide one. Apple uses the D&B record to verify your organization's identity, legal entity status and address, so check whether your company already has a record and whether its details are correct before requesting a new number.

Your build has to clear this year's technical floor. Since 28 April 2026, Apple requires apps uploaded to App Store Connect to be built with Xcode 26 or later using the iOS 26 SDK (or the matching iPadOS, tvOS, visionOS or watchOS 26 SDK). Since 31 August 2026, Google Play requires new apps and app updates to target Android 16 (API level 36), with an extension available on request until 1 November 2026. New Android apps must also ship as an Android App Bundle with Play App Signing, which has been mandatory since August 2021. The business consequence: a codebase nobody has touched for a year usually cannot ship even a one-line fix without SDK upgrade work first, so annual platform upgrades belong in the maintenance budget, not in the emergency fund.

Declarations are where honest apps get rejected. Apple requires App Privacy details for every new app and every update, and they must include data collected by third-party code you added, such as analytics tools, advertising networks and other SDKs. Apple also requires a privacy policy link both in App Store Connect and inside the app, and since 31 January 2026 every app needs answers to Apple's updated age rating questions. On Google Play, the App content page covers the privacy policy, the ads declaration, sign-in details for reviewers, target audience, content rating, sensitive permission declarations and the Data safety form. The trap is drift: someone adds an analytics or attribution SDK after the forms were filled in, and the declarations no longer match what the app actually sends. For apps serving users in Turkey, the privacy policy should also be consistent with your KVKK privacy notice (aydınlatma metni).

If users can create an account, they must be able to delete it, on both stores. Apple's guideline 5.1.1(v) says that if your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app. Google Play requires an in-app path to delete the account and its associated data, plus a web link where users can request deletion without reinstalling the app, and the Data safety form asks about both. Deletion touches the backend, the database and every third-party service that holds user data, so we scope it in the first sprint. Bolting it on the night before submission is the most reliable way to lose a week.

Rejections follow a predictable pattern, and Apple publishes the numbers. According to Apple's 2025 App Store Transparency Report, App Review handled 9,100,620 submissions in 2025 and rejected 2,093,244 of them, about 23%. Of those rejections, 1,354,418, roughly 65%, fell under the Performance section of the guidelines, which is where app completeness and accurate metadata live. Guideline 2.1 asks for final versions with no placeholder content and tells developers to include demo account details, and to keep the backend running, if the app has a login. Guideline 2.3 requires the description, screenshots and privacy information to reflect the app's real experience. The same report shows 387,087 submissions approved after a rejection, so most rejections are a delay, not a verdict.

The design-section rejections are the ones that end projects instead of delaying them. Guideline 4.2 says an app should include features, content and interface that go beyond a repackaged website, and 4.2.2 says that apps other than catalogs should not be primarily marketing material, web clippings, content aggregators or a collection of links. That is the guideline that rejects 'wrap our website in an app' projects. Guideline 4.3 forbids multiple bundle IDs of the same app, so a separate app per branch or per city is out and one app with a location selector is in. Guideline 4.8 says that if a third-party or social login such as Google Sign-In sets up the primary account, you must also offer an equivalent login that limits data to name and email, lets users keep their email private and does not track them for advertising without consent.

Payments follow a simple line. Apple's guideline 3.1.1 requires in-app purchase when you unlock features or digital content inside the app (subscriptions, premium content, full versions), while 3.1.3(e) requires a method other than in-app purchase when users buy physical goods or services consumed outside the app. For a Turkish business that means an e-commerce, food ordering or booking app charges through iyzico, PayTR or a bank's virtual POS, while a digital subscription goes through the store. Apple's Small Business Program charges a 15% commission to developers who earned up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the previous year or are new to the store, and you have to apply to join. Google restructured Play fees on 30 June 2026 in the United States, the United Kingdom and the EEA and says other markets follow on a staggered timeline, so confirm the current rate for Turkey in Play Console before you model revenue.

Here is the timeline we plan with, from 'build ready' to live. On Apple, upload to TestFlight (up to 100 internal testers, and up to 10,000 external testers once the build passes Beta App Review), submit with a working demo account, and expect a decision within a day or two in the normal case, with each rejection cycle adding roughly the same again. Apple accepts expedited review requests for critical bug fixes and for launches tied to an event. On Google Play with an organization account, move from internal testing to production and allow up to 7 days for the first review, which Google says can run longer in exceptional cases and for certain developer accounts. On a new personal Google Play account, add the 14-day closed test and the production access review: three to five weeks is realistic. Separately, Google's schedule starts Android developer verification on 30 September 2026 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, with global expansion in 2027; developers already verified in Play Console have their Play apps registered automatically, so it mainly matters if you distribute APKs outside the store.