Apple to require age verification for Texas App Store users

Apple will begin requiring age verification for App Store users in Texas on Thursday, June 4, a change that shows how one large state can push a national platform into rewriting its rules. The move turns Texas into a test case for state-by-state internet regulation, where child-safety laws are colliding with privacy concerns and forcing Apple to confront new liability risks inside the App Store itself.

Under the new Texas rules, anyone in the state creating a new Apple Account will have to confirm whether they are 18 or older. Users under 18 will need to use Family Sharing and obtain parental consent for app downloads, purchases and in-app transactions. Apple said it will also update its Declared Age Range API and add tools that let developers re-obtain parental consent and let parents revoke it later.

The change follows a legal fight over Texas SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act. Governor Greg Abbott signed the law on May 27, 2025, and it was originally set to take effect on January 1, 2026. A federal judge in Texas blocked enforcement in December 2025, finding the law likely unconstitutional, but the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily lifted that injunction on May 28, 2026, allowing the measure to take effect while the lawsuit continues.

Apple has argued that the law would force the collection of sensitive personal information and has favored privacy-focused tools over broad birthdate collection at the App Store level. That position reflects the central tension in the debate: Texas says platforms should verify age to protect children, while Apple says the mandate creates a new layer of personal-data gathering that could expose users to greater privacy risks.

The Texas fight is part of a broader wave of state action on children’s online safety. Utah enacted a similar App Store Accountability Act earlier in 2025, and Apple has said it faces comparable age-assurance requirements in other states, including Utah and Louisiana. That spread matters because Apple cannot treat Texas as an isolated case if more states follow the same model.

For Apple, the immediate issue is operational. For the broader internet economy, the deeper question is whether a single large state can effectively set a national standard by making platform-level age checks the cost of doing business. Texas is trying to regulate the App Store at the point of account creation, and if the approach takes hold elsewhere, child-safety law may begin to look less like a state policy experiment and more like a de facto national rule written one state at a time.