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Apple makes dating apps 18+ on the App Store, tightens rules for AI companions
Every app with dating or romantic relationship features must now carry an adult rating, and from 16 November developers must declare features such as live location sharing.
Key points
- Apple says all apps with dating or romantic features must carry an 18+ App Store rating.
- The rules also reach AI companion apps that offer sexual or romantic content.
- From 16 November, developers must add new content descriptors to their age ratings.
Apple has moved to keep minors off dating apps and romance-minded AI chatbots, ruling that every app with dating or romantic relationship features must carry an 18+ rating on the App Store.
The company set out the change in a notice to developers on Monday. It is aimed at apps that offer what Apple calls “sexual or romantic content”, a category that now takes in AI companion apps alongside the familiar dating services.
What changes for developers
From 16 November, developers must fill in new content descriptors so that an app’s age rating reflects what it actually does. One of them asks whether an app shares a user’s real-world location with another person or a group, a feature that raises privacy worries when users do not realise their whereabouts are being passed on.
In Brazil, family apps that share location can ask the Ministry of Justice and Public Security for an official rating instead of being listed at the A16 rating that local law requires.
Why AI companions are in the frame
Most big dating services already bar under-18s, so the sharper effect may fall on AI companion apps such as Character.AI and Replika, which let users create friends, girlfriends, boyfriends and other characters to chat with. Apple has not said which named apps will move to the adult rating. Apps in which romance is one feature among many will also have to declare it.
The sector is large. By the summer of 2025, the leading AI companion apps on the App Store and Google Play had been downloaded 220 million times worldwide, and xAI last year launched animated companions with unlockable adult modes.
The move follows Apple’s global rollout earlier this year of its age assurance technology, which lets apps check whether a user is an adult, and a run of new parental controls.