# Apple will rate apps with romantic AI companions 18+, the same as dating apps

> A new App Store Connect question asks whether an app offers dating or romantic content with real people or a virtual companion. Answer yes and the app is adults-only.

- URL: https://devisdead.ai/news/apple-will-rate-apps-with-romantic-ai-companions-18-the-same-as-dating-apps
- Published: 2026-11-03T14:14:30Z
- Author: DevIsDead Newsroom
- Section: Policy
- Tags: apple, app store, ai companions, age ratings
- Originally reported by Engadget (https://www.engadget.com/2305017/apple-start-mandating-age-requirements-dating-apps/).

Apple is adding two questions to the age-rating questionnaire developers fill out in App Store Connect, and one of them puts AI companions in the same bucket as dating apps.

As Mariella Moon reports for [Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/2305017/apple-start-mandating-age-requirements-dating-apps/), developers will have to say whether their app enables dating or romance between real people, or with a virtual companion that engages the user in sexual or romantic content. Any app that answers yes gets a minimum rating of 18+. The second question asks whether the app shares a user's real-world location with another person or group.

## What actually changes

- **Ratings:** dating and relationship apps, AI companions included, are rated 18+. On a device with parental content restrictions, they won't show up for anyone under 18.
- **Proof of age:** an underage user who can see one of these apps in the store and tries to download or buy it will have to prove to Apple that they are an adult.
- **Location sharing:** in most regions this doesn't affect the rating. Some countries set their own rules, such as Brazil, where location-sharing apps must be rated 16+.
- **Dates:** the questions appear in App Store Connect on November 16 and apply to every new submission or update. By January 12, 2027, developers must have answered both for all their apps.

## Why developers should care

The wording matters more than the rule. Apple isn't asking whether your app is a dating app. It's asking whether it can get romantic, with anyone or anything. A general-purpose chatbot that will play along with a romantic roleplay could arguably have to answer yes, and lose every younger user in a single checkbox. Teams shipping character or companion features will need to decide what their model is actually allowed to do, then answer the questionnaire to match.

It's also a sign that "virtual companion" is now a product category app stores regulate on its own terms. Apple doesn't usually write rules for a technology until there are enough apps to need one.

What isn't clear yet is how Apple will check the answers, or what happens to an app whose model drifts into romance it never declared. Self-reporting has always been the weak spot of age ratings, and a model's behavior is harder to pin down than a feature list.

**[Scoreboard](/scoreboard) update:** Humans +1. Apple puts romantic AI companions behind an adults-only rating.

Stay undead.