The Apple Developer Program isn’t a one-time purchase — it’s an annual membership, currently priced at $99 a year for individuals and organizations alike. Miss the renewal and the consequences show up fast: your apps disappear from the App Store within days, and you lose the ability to ship updates or touch your certificates until you pay up.
Table of Contents
This guide walks through exactly what happens when a membership lapses, what still works for existing users, how long you have to fix it, and what to do to get everything back online.
Quick Answer
If you don’t renew, your apps become unavailable for new downloads and you can’t submit updates or access Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles in App Store Connect. People who already installed your app can usually keep using it, since Apple doesn’t remotely disable installed apps — but anything that depends on live services tied to your account can still break.
What Happens the Moment Your Membership Expires
Apple pulls your apps from the App Store listing pages so new users can’t find or download them, and blocks new app and update submissions until you renew. Access to developer tools like Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles is cut off too, which matters if you need to issue a new certificate or renew a provisioning profile for an app that’s about to hit its own expiration.
You keep some App Store Connect access and the free development resources that come with an Apple ID, just not the parts that require an active paid membership. There’s no published grace period that keeps your listings live past the expiration date — Apple’s own renewal documentation describes this as taking effect essentially right away, so don’t count on a buffer window.
Apple does give you time on the renewal side, though: you can renew manually starting 30 days before your expiration date, or any time after it expires, without starting enrollment over from scratch. If you enrolled and paid through the App Store subscription option on your iPhone or iPad, you can resubscribe up to a year after your membership lapsed.
What Happens to Apps, Users, Devices, and Paid Listings
Existing installs: a user who already downloaded your app before the lapse can generally keep using it, since the app itself isn’t remotely killed. What breaks is anything that requires fresh authorization from Apple’s servers — things like TestFlight builds expiring, push notification entitlements tied to an inactive team, or CloudKit containers behaving unpredictably once the owning account isn’t in good standing.
Registered test devices: if you have devices registered for development or ad hoc distribution, Apple automatically removes all of them 180 days after your membership expires, unless you export your device list or remove them yourself beforehand.
Free vs. paid apps on renewal: once you renew, free apps typically become available again within about 24 hours automatically. Paid apps and in-app purchases need one extra step — you have to sign back into App Store Connect and re-accept the Paid Applications Agreement before they reappear. Either way, you don’t need to resubmit the app itself; the existing binary and listing come back online.
Tips / Common Mistakes
Turn on automatic renewal if your team doesn’t want to think about this — Apple charges the card on file at the membership’s expiration date by default once you’ve opted in, which avoids the whole situation.
Don’t wait until the expiration date to deal with a declined card or an organization’s billing hold. Renewal issues (failed payments, D-U-N-S number or legal-entity verification snags for organization accounts) can take days to resolve, and your listing is already down while that’s happening.
If you’re sunsetting an app on purpose, that’s different from an accidental lapse — plan an intentional removal through App Store Connect instead of just letting the membership expire, since an expired account also blocks you from managing anything else tied to that team.
If you manage apps for clients, keep renewal dates in a shared calendar. An expired membership doesn’t just affect one app — it takes down every app and every pending update under that developer account at once.
Explore more: more app development guides.
Apple Developer Program renewal FAQs
How much does it cost to renew an Apple Developer account?
The Apple Developer Program renews at $99 per year for both individual and organization accounts, regardless of how many apps you have published.
Will my app get deleted from users’ phones if I don’t renew?
No. Apple doesn’t remotely delete an app that’s already installed. It stops appearing in the App Store for new downloads and updates, but existing installs typically keep running.
Can I renew after my Apple Developer membership has already expired?
Yes. You can renew manually any time after expiration — there’s no need to re-enroll from scratch. If you originally subscribed through the App Store on an iPhone or iPad, you can resubscribe for up to a year after it lapsed.
Do I have to resubmit my app after renewing?
No. Once you renew, your existing app listing comes back online. Free apps typically reactivate within about 24 hours; paid apps and in-app purchases need you to re-accept the Paid Applications Agreement in App Store Connect first.
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