How to declare your App Store age rating in Helm

Age rating declarations tell Apple (and parents) what content and capabilities your app includes. Getting them wrong delays review or mislabels your product page. Helm lets you complete the age rating questionnaire on Mac from your shipping workspace, so it stays next to the rest of release prep instead of another buried ASC form.

This guide covers a practical declaration pass, when to update ratings after a feature ships, and the social media questions Apple added for Time Allowances.

Why the questionnaire matters

Your answers drive the age rating shown on the App Store product page. They also interact with parental controls and, as of 2026, with Social Media Time Allowance categorization on newer OS versions.

Treat the form like product truth, not marketing. If your app includes unrestricted web access, user-generated content, or messaging, say so. App Review notices mismatches between the binary and the declaration.

Declare age ratings on Mac in Helm

Age rating declaration lives in Helm’s Mac dashboard alongside app information and release prep:

1. Open your app in Helm on Mac.
2. Find the age rating declaration (App Information / dashboard area where Helm surfaces the questionnaire).
3. Answer each content and capability question based on the current binary, not the roadmap.
4. Save and confirm the declaration is complete before you submit a version.
5. Re-open the form whenever behavior changes in a meaningful way.

The launch checklist is a good reminder to verify ratings before submit for review.

Social media capabilities and under-13

Apple’s age rating questionnaire now includes questions about social media capabilities. Apple defines that as the ability to redistribute, amplify, or interact with user-generated content through a social feed or similar discovery method.

Key implications:

• Apps with social media capabilities get a Social Media content descriptor on the product page.
• Those apps receive a minimum 13+ age rating when social media capabilities are declared.
• If social features exist but are disabled for anyone under 13 (validated with Apple’s Declared Age Range API at minimum), the app is not placed in the Social Media Time Allowance category for users under 13. Your other questionnaire answers still determine the overall rating, which may be lower than 13+ in that case.
• Responses become required for new apps and updates (and notarization for alternative distribution) starting September 2026. You can answer earlier.

If your app is a utility with no feed-style amplification of UGC, answer honestly that you do not have social media capabilities. Do not stretch the definition to chase a lower rating, and do not under-declare to appear more kid-friendly than you are.

When to revisit the form

Update the declaration when you ship:

• A public feed, discover tab, or reshare flow
• Unrestricted web browsing inside the app
• New user-generated content surfaces
• Messaging or chat that changes capability answers
• Kids-oriented positioning or Made for Kids related changes

A “we will add social later” plan is not a reason to declare social today. A social feature already in production is not a reason to leave last year’s answers untouched.

Team tips

• Have engineering and product answer together once. Product often underestimates capabilities; engineering often over-indexes on edge cases.
• Keep a short internal note of why you answered key capability questions the way you did.
• After a major release, spot-check the product page rating and descriptors.
• For kids’ apps, double-check that in-app behavior matches both the rating and your privacy nutrition story.

Helm does not replace App Store Connect for account-level kids or agreement settings. It gives you a native place to complete and update the declaration while you prepare releases on Mac.

Checklist before submission

• Every question matches the current binary
• Social media answers reflect real feeds / UGC amplification (or clearly not)
• Under-13 disablement is implemented and declared only if true
• Rating and descriptors look right on a product page preview after save
• Someone owns re-checking the form when capabilities change

Related reading

• Releases in Helm
• Prepare a launch checklist
• Submit your app for review
• App Store Connect glossary