Apple has published a new update on its Developer blog outlining tax and pricing changes that will touch several App Store storefronts in the coming weeks. The changes arrive in two stages and affect both what developers take home and what customers ultimately pay.
The first stage is already in effect. Three countries have introduced or adjusted their tax rates on digital purchases, and Apple is folding those changes directly into developer proceeds. Morocco has introduced a 20% value-added tax on App Store transactions, the Republic of the Congo has done the same at 18%, and Tanzania has raised its digital sales tax from 2% to 3%. Because Apple handles the collection and remittance of these taxes on developers’ behalf, payouts in these three markets are adjusting automatically, without any action needed from developers themselves.
The second stage lands on September 14, when Apple updates storefront pricing in Israel, Indonesia, Morocco, and the Republic of the Congo. According to the company, these changes account for the new VAT rates mentioned above, and they’ll apply specifically to developers who haven’t chosen one of those four countries as their app’s base storefront.
That base storefront setting is really what determines how developers experience these changes. If a developer has selected Israel, Indonesia, Morocco, or the Republic of the Congo as their base, pricing in that storefront stays exactly where it is, and Apple instead recalculates prices everywhere else to stay in line with it. For developers based anywhere else, the opposite happens: prices in these four markets will shift upward to keep pace with their chosen base price.
Apple hasn’t published the specific new price points in its announcement, but developers can already see the updated figures by checking the Pricing and Availability section inside App Store Connect.
There are a couple of built-in exceptions worth knowing about. Auto-renewable subscriptions are excluded entirely and won’t see any price movement in any region as a result of this update. The same goes for storefronts where a developer has opted to manage pricing manually rather than relying on Apple’s automated equalization system — those prices remain untouched regardless of what’s happening elsewhere.
Apple frames all of this as standard housekeeping, describing it as part of the routine process it uses to keep pricing aligned with shifting tax regulations and exchange rates around the world. Developers looking for the full technical breakdown can find the companies original post on the Apple Developer website.
