App Store Small Business Program Now Allows Transfers
The App Store Paid Applications Agreement used to say:
Beginning January 1, 2021, You will not be eligible for the App Store Small Business Program if You participate, either as the Transferor or the Recipient, in the transfer of a Licensed Application. For example, if You transfer a Licensed Application from Your developer account to another developer account using the App Store Connect tool, both you (the Transferor) and the other developer account (the Recipient) will not be eligible to participate in the App Store Small Business Program. Similarly, if another developer transfers a Licensed Application from its developer account to Your developer account using the App Store Connect tool, both you (the Recipient) and the other developer account (the Transferor) will not be eligible to participate in the App Store Small Business Program.
Steve Troughton-Smith notes that this has been removed. It now says:
If You participate, either as a Transferor or a Recipient (hereafter referred to as an “App Transfer Party”), in the transfer of a Licensed Application, the proceeds associated with that Licensed Application will be included in the calculation of total proceeds of any App Transfer Party to determine eligibility for participation in the App Store Small Business Program. For example, if You transfer a Licensed Application from Your developer account to another developer account using the App Store Connect tool, the proceeds associated with that transferred Licensed Application will be included in the calculation of Your total proceeds and in the calculation of the total proceeds of the developer account to which you transferred the Licensed Application. If a Licensed Application is transferred multiple times in a given calendar year, the proceeds associated with that Licensed Application will be included in the calculation of total proceeds of each and every App Transfer Party.
I received a different notification e-mail from Apple, which didn’t mention this change.
Good news! Now about that “no app transfers for apps with iCloud entitlements” thing…
See also: Filipe Espósito.
Previously:
- Enrolling in the App Store Small Business Program
- App Store Small Business Program With 15% Fee
- Apps That Can’t Be Transferred
- Transferring App Ownership
I just discovered this earlier today when accepting the latest agreement (I habitually make a text version of the PDF, then perform a diff against the prior version; this is v122b; the prior I had apparently accepted was v119). If there was any explicit notification from Apple, I missed it.