Apple on November 2, 2026 told developers that App Store Connect will add two new content descriptors to its age rating questionnaire from November 16, 2026: one for apps that share a person's real-world location with others, and one for apps that enable dating or romantic relationships, including with a virtual companion. Apps that declare dating and relationship features receive a minimum age rating of 18+. In Brazil, according to Apple's developer news post, local regulations require an A16 rating for shared location and an A18 rating for dating, and every app on the store must complete both declarations by January 12, 2027.

In Short

Apple is adding two questions to the form app makers fill in to get an age rating: does the app let people share where they are with others, and does it offer dating or romantic chat, including with a virtual companion. A yes to the dating question means the app is rated 18+, and in Brazil a yes to the location question means the app is rated A16, not recommended for anyone under 16. The questions appear on November 16, 2026, and every app has to answer them by January 12, 2027. Apps built for parents to keep track of their children can ask Brazil's Ministry of Justice for an official, lower rating.

What Apple posted on November 2

The notice, titled "Upcoming: New age rating content descriptors in App Store Connect," runs to six short paragraphs. Its stated purpose is to make sure age ratings "accurately reflect" an app's features "and are in accordance with local regulations." It does not name a law, a regulator outside Brazil, or a reason for choosing these two features.

The two descriptors are defined in a single line each. Shared Location covers "Sharing of real-world location with another person or group." Dating and Relationships covers "Features that enable dating or relationship connections between real people and/or a virtual companion that engages a user in sexual or romantic content."

The timing has two steps. From Monday, November 16, 2026, fourteen days after the notice, the questionnaire will carry the new questions, and developers must answer them whenever they submit an app update or edit their existing questionnaire answers. Then comes a hard date. "All apps must have these declarations completed by January 12, 2027," the notice states. That is a Tuesday, 71 days after Apple published the post and 57 days after the questions go live.

What happens to an app that misses the date is not spelled out. When Apple rebuilt its rating tiers in 2025, it said incomplete questionnaire responses would interrupt app update submissions after January 31, 2026. The November 2 notice contains no equivalent sentence.

Two descriptors, two different weights

The consequences of the two answers are not symmetrical. "Apps that include Dating and Relationships receive a minimum age rating of 18+," Apple writes, without qualification. For the other descriptor, the language is softer and harder to parse: "Apps that include Shared Location may not have an impact on their minimum age rating in some regions."

Which regions? Apple does not say. Nor does it say what the minimum rating becomes in regions where Shared Location does have an impact, with one exception. Brazil is the only market the notice addresses by name.

The wording of each definition sets its reach. Shared Location is about one user exposing a position to "another person or group." On a plain reading, location an app collects for its own purposes, or passes to analytics and advertising partners, is a separate matter, handled by the App privacy disclosures in App Store Connect. Dating and Relationships, meanwhile, uses "and/or," which means an app qualifies by connecting real people, by offering a virtual companion that engages in "sexual or romantic content," or by doing both. A general-purpose chatbot that does not engage users romantically is not, on the face of the text, inside the definition. Many companion chatbots, built around a persistent character and a continuing relationship, plainly are.

Brazil: A16, A18 and a route to a lower rating

The notice gives Brazil its own paragraph. "In Brazil, local regulations require an A16 rating for Shared Location and an A18 rating for Dating and Relationships," Apple writes. The "A" prefix matters. It marks a self-rated app, as opposed to one rated by the government.

Apple then describes an exit for developers who think the A16 is too high. Its example is location sharing "specifically designed for parents and children." Such developers can request an official rating directly from Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security, known as MJSP, and "Once verified, the official rating will display on the App Store in Brazil." The notice links to the ministry's Classificação Indicativa page and to the Brazil section of Apple's age ratings reference.

The example points to a tension. The family locator, the category Apple singles out, exists to keep track of children, yet under the self-rated scheme it would carry the same A16 as an app with unrestricted web access.

Two sets of pictograms

Apple's reference page explains why Brazil looks different from every other storefront. "As required by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), the App Store uses a different set of region-specific rating pictograms and descriptors for self-rated apps, than for ratings officially issued by the MJSP," it states.

The official set runs L, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. The self-rated set mirrors it with a prefix: AL, A6, A10, A12, A14, A16 and A18. When the ministry issues a rating or a descriptor to an app, Apple updates the regional rating on the developer's behalf and the official version is what Brazilian users see.

The self-rated table on the same page shows how Apple maps its questionnaire to that scale:

  • AL: no objectionable material, though apps may contain parental controls or age assurance, both listed as in-app controls.
  • A6: user-generated content, infrequent cartoon or fantasy violence, infrequent contests.
  • A10: infrequent profanity and crude humor, infrequent horror or fear themes, health and wellness topics, infrequent guns or other weapons.
  • A12: advertising, messaging and chat, frequent profanity, infrequent medical or treatment information, infrequent mature or suggestive themes, infrequent sexual content or nudity, frequent cartoon or fantasy violence, infrequent realistic violence, frequent guns or other weapons, infrequent simulated gambling.
  • A14: frequent horror or fear themes, infrequent alcohol, tobacco or drug use or references.
  • A16: unrestricted web access, social media, social media disabled for users under 13, frequent alcohol, tobacco or drug use or references, frequent medical or treatment information.
  • A18: frequent mature or suggestive themes, frequent sexual content or nudity, frequent realistic violence, frequent gambling, frequent simulated gambling, loot boxes.

Two details stand out. "Infrequent guns or other weapons" appears twice, once under violence at A10 and again under capabilities at A16, and the page does not explain the duplication. And as of November 3, the table did not yet include Shared Location or Dating and Relationships. Once added, location sharing will sit beside social media and unrestricted web access at A16, and dating beside loot boxes and frequent gambling at A18.

The same Brazil section carries a requirement PPC Land covered in May. Apps with fixed-odds betting features need a valid license from the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets to be distributed in Brazil, and answering yes to the gambling question sets the Brazil rating to A18.

Inside the ministry's rulebook

The ministry page Apple links to sits in the "Seus Direitos" section of the gov.br portal, devoted to citizens' rights. It is the public face of a classification system run by the Secretaria Nacional de Direitos Digitais, the National Secretariat for Digital Rights, through a coordination office for classification policy in Brasília. The page splits the system into two tracks, "Filmes, séries e novelas" and "Jogos e RPG," with further sections on classification guides, legislation, parental controls and the International Age Rating Coalition, known as IARC. When Roblox partnered with IARC in 2025, Brazil's ClassInd was one of the coalition's nine rating authorities. Requests for a rating go through an electronic petition service on gov.br called "Obter Classificação indicativa," and the page gives an email address, classificacaoindicativa@mj.gov.br, for questions.

The ministry also publishes practical guides for each sector. The second edition of its Guia Prático de Artes Visuais, dated Brasília 2025 and produced under Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, Secretary for Digital Rights Lilian Cintra de Melo and Coordinator-General Eduardo de Araújo Nepomuceno, covers exhibitions of painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. It is not a guide to apps. It does, however, set out the architecture every guide in the series shares, and that architecture explains a great deal about Apple's Brazil paragraph. Quotations below are PPC Land translations from Portuguese.

Four axes, one of them about location

The guide states that the secretariat's remit covers broadcast and pay television, cinema and video, streaming and video on demand, electronic games, applications, radio, role-playing games and public shows. Its legal footing is article 220 of the Federal Constitution, regulated by the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, Law 8.069 of 1990, and by ministry ordinances.

Ratings are built on four thematic axes: violence, drugs, sex and nudity, and interactivity. The last is defined as "features and services that involve interaction between users, data sharing, location, live streams, automated curation, among other elements that may affect the privacy, safety or development of children and adolescents." Location is written into Brazil's rating criteria as a risk factor in its own right, alongside live streaming and algorithmic curation. Apple's A16 for Shared Location sits squarely within that axis, although neither Apple's notice nor the visual arts guide ties the two together explicitly.

The visual arts guide does not set the age thresholds for location features itself. It says the interactivity axis may be used only when the criteria of the separate Guia Prático de Audiovisual, Aplicativos e RPG are present, for example in interactive digital works. Its own interactivity chapter runs to two paragraphs and refers to "the radio guide," an apparent carry-over from another volume in the series.

Self-rating, provisional symbols and a sovereignty clause

Visual arts exhibitions, the guide says, are rated "through the self-classification system, exempt from procedural registration, but subject to monitoring and possible alteration" by the ministry. Self-rated works must display provisional symbols, AL through A18, "until the official indicative classification is confirmed," at which point they "must be immediately replaced" by the definitive L through 18. The colors are fixed down to the RGB value: green for L, fuchsia for 6, light blue for 10, yellow for 12, orange for 14, red for 16 and black for 18. Apple's two rows of pictograms on its reference page follow the same scheme.

Content descriptors accompany the age band, with a minimum of one and a maximum of four per work, drawn from an official list of 21 terms that includes "Apostas ou jogos de azar" (betting or gambling), "Conteúdo sexual" (sexual content) and "Violência fantasiosa" (fantasy violence). Descriptors may be displayed only when the ministry has assigned them officially.

The guide insists the system "does not restrict the broadcasting of content and should not be confused with censorship." It also contains a passage on national sovereignty that reads directly onto an app store operating across many countries: "Even if the same content is classified as 'livre' in another place, Brazil has the right to indicate it differently, for example, as 'not recommended for under-16s', if it contravenes national parameters." That is, in effect, what Apple's notice describes. A feature that "may not have an impact" on a minimum rating elsewhere carries an A16 in Brazil.

According to the guide, its revisions reflect an ordinance built through a public consultation held between April 16 and June 15, 2025 on the federal Participa + Brasil platform.

The rating follows the advertising

For marketers, the most concrete passages concern display. The visual arts guide requires the rating to appear in advertising "in electronic media (television, cinema, radio and internet)," including "electronic banners on internet sites." Graphic ads such as internet banners must carry the phrase "verifique a classificação indicativa" (check the indicative classification), and the official symbol and content descriptors become optional extras only once the ministry has rated the work. On Brazilian websites, or those aimed at the Brazilian public, the symbol must be 70 pixels tall, and a work not yet rated must show the phrase in capitals, in Roboto Condensed. Those rules are written for exhibitions of visual art, not for apps. They show, nonetheless, how far Brazil's classification regime reaches beyond the product into its marketing.

Brazil's wider push on minors online

Apple's notice cites only "local regulations." The surrounding legal picture has been moving quickly. Brazil's Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent, Law 15.211, was signed on September 17, 2025, and Decree 12.880 followed on March 18, 2026. In August 2026, Brazil's data protection authority, the ANPD, ordered Discord to switch off its Go Live video feature for all local users within three business days, and the law allows fines of up to R$50 million per infraction.

The ANPD's draft age verification guide, opened for public input in May 2026, excluded self-declaration from the category of reliable mechanisms and listed "adult companion services" among high-risk services that require high-robustness verification. Its enforcement map for 2026 and 2027, approved in December 2025, made child protection a priority theme and pointed to Article 22 of Law 15.211, which bans profiling techniques for directing commercial advertising to children and adolescents. In August 2025, Brazil's Attorney General's Office had sent Meta an extrajudicial notification over AI chatbots built with Meta AI Studio, with a 72-hour deadline.

Apple has already adjusted its own systems for Brazil. Its Declared Age Range framework returns an age band to an app instead of a date of birth, and on February 24, 2026 Apple began blocking 18+ app downloads in Brazil for users not confirmed as adults.

A rating system rebuilt in 18 months

The November 2 notice is the latest in a sequence of questionnaire changes that has turned Apple's age rating from a global label into a regional one. On July 24, 2025, Apple added 13+, 16+ and 18+ tiers to its 4+ and 9+ ratings and said ratings would vary by country and region. In November 2025, revised App Review Guidelines required creator apps to restrict content above their rating using verified or declared age.

In the United States, Apple paused its Texas age verification rules after a court injunction in December 2025, then switched them on in June 2026, with parental consent for minors' downloads.

The regional additions kept coming. In July 2026, apps with social media features were given a minimum 13+ rating, mandatory from September, with Brazil at A16, Australia at 16+ and South Korea at 15+. In August, Apple moved infrequent profanity and suggestive themes from All to 12+ in Korea from October. Earlier still, Apple had introduced loot box disclosures and regional ratings for Australia and Korea in June 2024 and an 18+ regional rating in France that September. Apple's reference page now lists region-specific value tables for Australia, Brazil, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam.

Ratings now reach promotion as well. App Store creative assets arriving with iOS 27 must meet a 4+ rating even when the app itself is rated higher.

Virtual companions meet an 18+ floor

The companion app market is where the dating descriptor is likely to bite hardest. Research from Deepsee, last updated July 15, 2026, found that 2,589 of 4,346 AI companion apps, or 60%, were rated accessible to minors, and that 1,058 iOS listings carried a 4+ rating. Any of those apps that engages users in romantic or sexual content will have to declare it by January 12, 2027 and take the 18+ minimum.

Regulators are converging on the same features from the other side. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law barring human-posing AI chatbot features for under-18s, which takes effect on January 1, 2027, eleven days before Apple's deadline. It lists 12 unsafe companion features and allows civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation.

A rating, though, is only as accurate as the answers behind it. Apple's reference page says Apple "generates appropriate ratings" based on the developer's questionnaire responses. Ratings are one layer of age-gating on the App Store, alongside the account-level age checks Apple has introduced in Texas and Brazil.

Why this matters for the marketing community

Age ratings decide who can find and download an app. Apple's reference page describes the rating as the field "used by the parental controls," and an Unrated app "can't be published on the App Store." For a dating or companion app, an 18+ floor puts the app beyond any parental limit set below 18, and in Brazil, where Apple blocks 18+ downloads for users not confirmed as adults, out of reach of unverified accounts too. For a location-sharing app in Brazil, A16 places it above the limit of any parental control set for a child under 16, unless the developer secures an official rating.

Brazil's self-rated table adds a further point that is easy to miss. "Advertising" is listed as a capability at A12. An ad-funded app on the Brazilian storefront therefore starts at A12 under self-rating, whatever its content, and Article 22 of Law 15.211 separately bans profiling for advertising aimed at children and adolescents. The rating and the advertising rules are converging on the same users.

The scope of Shared Location will matter to product and growth teams in categories well beyond family locators. Social apps with friend maps already sit at A16 in Brazil through the social media descriptor. The incremental effect falls on apps without social features that still let one person see another's position.

What the notice leaves open

Several questions remain unanswered in Apple's text:

  • Which regions see no rating change from Shared Location, and what the minimum rating is outside Brazil.
  • What happens to an app that has not completed the declarations by January 12, 2027.
  • Whether features such as sharing a ride's progress, a delivery courier's position or a running route with friends count as "Sharing of real-world location with another person or group."
  • How long a ministry verification takes. The petition service on the ministry page is framed around classifying "obras" (works), and Apple's notice gives no timetable.
  • How the new 18+ floor appears on devices running OS versions earlier than 26, for which Apple's reference page says ratings may differ.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Apple and the developers who distribute apps through App Store Connect, particularly makers of dating apps, virtual companion apps and apps that share users' locations. Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security, through its National Secretariat for Digital Rights, runs the classification system behind the Brazilian ratings.

What: Apple is adding two content descriptors, Shared Location and Dating and Relationships, to its age rating questionnaire. Dating and Relationships carries a minimum 18+ rating. In Brazil, self-rated apps with Shared Location get A16 and those with Dating and Relationships get A18, and developers can ask the ministry for a lower official rating, for example for parent-child location sharing.

When: Apple announced the change on November 2, 2026. The descriptors appear in App Store Connect from November 16, 2026, and all apps must complete the declarations by January 12, 2027.

Where: App Store Connect and the App Store worldwide, with a Brazil-specific rating rule. Apple says Shared Location may not change the minimum rating in some regions but does not name them.

Why: Apple says the descriptors are meant to make ratings reflect app features and comply with local regulations. Brazil's classification guides treat location sharing as part of an interactivity axis that can affect children's privacy and safety, and Brazilian, New York and other rules on minors and companion chatbots take effect around the same period.