How to set up an Apple Developer account: the complete guide

The Apple Developer Program is the paid membership that lets you ship to the App Store, run TestFlight betas, and manage certificates and provisioning profiles. Apple's own line on price: "The Apple Developer Program is 99 USD per membership year. Prices may vary by region and are listed in local currency during the enrollment process." There is no per-app fee; one membership covers every app you publish. Nonprofits, accredited educational institutions, and government entities can request a fee waiver.

Two things people confuse it with. It is not an Apple Account — that's free, and you need one first. And it is not the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, which is for distributing internal apps inside large organizations and has its own rules. If your app is going on the App Store, the standard program is the one.

The universal prerequisites, in Apple's words: "To enroll, you'll need an Apple Account with two-factor authentication turned on and be the legal age of majority in your region." Turn on two-factor before you begin — the enrollment cannot proceed without it, and it is the single most common reason a first attempt stalls.

This choice is not cosmetic. It decides what appears as the seller name on every App Store listing you ever publish, and it decides how long enrollment takes.

Enroll as an individual if you are a solo builder or a sole proprietor. Your personal legal name becomes the seller name: "If you're an individual or sole proprietor/single-person business, your personal legal name will be listed as the seller on the App Store." You'll be asked for that legal name, an email, phone, and a physical address (P.O. boxes are not accepted). The instruction Apple bolds, and which delays more enrollments than anything else: "Do not enter an alias, nickname, or company name as your first or last name, as entering your legal name incorrectly will cause a delay."

Enroll as an organization if you have a company and want its name on the store. The bar is higher and the wording is exact: "Your organization must be a legal entity so that it can enter into contracts with Apple. We don't accept DBAs, fictitious businesses, trade names, or branches." The person enrolling becomes the Account Holder and must have authority to sign: "You must be the organization's owner/founder, executive team member, senior project lead, or an employee with legal authority." Two practical requirements catch small companies off guard: "Your work email address needs to be associated with your organization's domain name" — a Gmail address will not do — and "Your organization's website must be publicly available and functional." A coming-soon page has stalled enrollments.

If you are a company of one and the store name matters to you, weigh it honestly: the organization route adds the D-U-N-S clock below. Many founders ship v1 as an individual and transfer later; Apple supports transferring the Account Holder role and apps, but that is its own process.

Organizations must have a D-U-N-S Number — a nine-digit business identifier issued by Dun & Bradstreet — so Apple can verify identity, legal status, and address. Government organizations are exempt. The number is free in most jurisdictions, and your company may already have one: Apple provides a lookup tool, and its first instruction is "Before enrolling, look up your organization to see if you have a D‑U‑N‑S Number."

If you don't have one, request it through Apple's tool and read the timeline as a hard constraint, because it is one. Apple: "Please allow up to 5 business days to receive your number from D&B." Then: "Once you receive your D‑U‑N‑S Number, please allow up to 2 business days for Apple to receive your information from D&B." And the sentence that ends the argument about paying to hurry: "Expediting your D‑U‑N‑S Number creation process will not shorten this waiting period."

So the organization path is roughly a week of waiting before Apple even looks at your enrollment — and the details you give D&B (legal name, address) must match what you later give Apple exactly, or you restart. Request the D-U-N-S Number the day you decide to build, not the day the build is done.

Apple offers two enrollment paths, and they differ in more than convenience: "Enrollment in the Apple Developer Program is available through the Apple Developer app and on the web." (Enterprise enrollment is web only.)

The Apple Developer app (on iPhone or iPad) is the faster path for individuals, and in some regions the only one: "Enrollment in India is only available through the Apple Developer app." The app may ask you to verify your identity with a government photo ID during enrollment. One consequence to know before you tap: "If you're enrolling using the Apple Developer app, membership is provided on an annual basis as an auto-renewable subscription that renews until cancelled," charged to the payment method on your App Store account.

The web (developer.apple.com/enroll) is the path for organizations and for anyone who prefers a manual annual renewal rather than a subscription.

Either way, you'll sign the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, confirm your details, and pay. Apple's expectation for what happens next: "After your purchase has been processed, you'll receive a confirmation email… If you haven't received a membership confirmation within 24 hours of your purchase, contact us." Apple does not publish a review-time figure for enrollment itself — individual enrollments commonly complete quickly, organization enrollments wait on the verification above — and any page that gives you a number in hours is guessing.

Membership activation unlocks App Store Connect, and there are four things to do there before you touch a build — each of them a silent blocker later if skipped.

Agreements. Under Agreements, Tax, and Banking, accept the Paid Applications agreement even if your first app is free. In-app purchases and paid tiers cannot go live until it is signed, and the tax and banking forms take their own time to process.

Users and roles. Add your collaborators with the least role they need. The Account Holder is the only role that can sign agreements and transfer the account — keep that person deliberately chosen.

Certificates, identifiers, and profiles. Register your app's bundle identifier here (it cannot change once a build is uploaded) and let Xcode manage signing automatically unless you have a reason not to.

TestFlight. Nothing to configure yet, but know that it is now available to you: up to 100 internal and 10,000 external testers, builds valid for 90 days, and the first external build goes through Apple's review. The full submission ceremony — record, build, listing, review, release — is in how to publish an app on the App Store.

The membership is annual and its expiry has real consequences, in Apple's words: "If your Apple Developer Program membership expires, your apps will no longer be available for download," and "you won't be able to submit new apps or updates or access Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles." The one mercy: "your apps will still function for users who have already installed or downloaded them" — but every new user is gone until you renew.

Renewal windows: "you can renew manually starting 30 days before the expiration date of your existing membership" or any time after it expires; Apple Developer app subscribers auto-renew, and can renew for up to one year after expiry if the subscription lapsed. Put the renewal date in the calendar of a person who will still be at the company in a year.

Day 0

Turn on two-factor. Decide individual vs organization. If organization: look up or request the D-U-N-S Number, using the exact legal name and address you'll give Apple.

Days 1–5 (organizations)

D&B assigns the number: up to five business days, not expeditable.

Days 6–7 (organizations)

Up to two business days for Apple to receive it from D&B.

Enrollment day

Web or Apple Developer app; legal name exactly right; sign; pay $99. Confirmation expected within 24 hours of purchase.

Verification

Apple publishes no duration. Individuals: often quick. Organizations: Apple may contact the company to confirm the enrolling person's authority.

Activation day, first hour

Agreements, users, bundle ID, TestFlight ready.

Every year

Renew from 30 days before expiry, or apps leave the store.

None of the above cares how your app was built; Apple enrolls the seller, not the process. It does care that the app is real and complete when it arrives, which is why we mention Modaal once: it produces a standard Xcode project on your Mac — real Swift for iPhone, and Kotlin for Android from the same project — with a plan you approve before each feature, so what you upload from Xcode is an app rather than a demo. Free plan: one project, unlimited prompts. The whole path from idea to both stores is in how to build a mobile app from scratch. Enroll first; build in parallel; the calendar above is why.