Every paid developer files a US tax form, including the ones who never sell in America.

What does Apple want before it will pay you?

Four things, and Apple lists them in one place. The Paid Apps Agreement in effect. Banking information on file, which is the primary bank account at the moment a payment is processed, because split payments across several accounts are not supported. The minimum monthly payment threshold exceeded for each country or region where you sell. And any monthly invoicing requirement that applies to your country completed. Tax forms sit underneath all of that, because the banking step will not go through without them.

The path to the forms is short. Select Business at the top of App Store Connect, open the Agreements tab, find the Tax Forms section, and click Add Tax Info next to the form you want. If the form you expect is not there, click the plus button next to Tax Forms, choose Paid Apps from the menu, tick the form and click Add. The required role is Account Holder, Admin or Finance. Hand this to a Developer account and the buttons will not be there.

Which forms show up depends on where your developer account is based. A United States developer gets a W-9 with a field for a tax identification number, and Apple spells out what goes in it: a Social Security Number for an individual, which it notes is also the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or an Employer Identification Number for a business entity. Outside the US, Apple asks a series of questions and then directs you to the W-8BEN, the W-8BEN-E or the W-8ECI, with any certification that applies. There are also nine country sections on the page, covering Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, each with its own list.

Treat the Submit button as one way. Apple says that once you submit this information you cannot make changes in App Store Connect, and that corrections or extra forms go through its support channel. Some forms can be edited there and others cannot, which you find out form by form. The timing is mechanical: a change made before the end of the fiscal month applies to that month's earnings, and a change after it applies to the next one. Apple also warns that the original answer may keep showing on screen after it already holds your correction, so do not read the old value as a failed update. For banking, it wants the details of your own bank and not an intermediary or correspondent, the routing number unique to your account, and the holder name exactly as the bank has it, because a mismatch can get the payment rejected.

App Store Connect Help, Provide tax information, read 21 October 2026

What do the forms say about tax treaty rates?

Less than the internet implies. Apple's Provide tax information page uses the word treaty once, and the passage is about Brazil rather than the United States. If your account is based outside Brazil and your country or region has a treaty with Brazil, you may upload a tax residency certificate. Apple says your withholding rate is not reduced until that certificate has been received and reviewed for the treaty benefits between Brazil and your country, and that your Brazilian sales may be withheld at the standard rate until then. It adds that you can start selling in Brazil in the meantime, as long as your banking and tax information is complete, and that if your region is denied under Brazilian legislation there is no reduced rate available at all.

That is the whole of it. The page prints no rate, no percentage and no table of countries for the W-8 forms. What it says about filers outside the United States is that the questions will direct you to the most appropriate form and any applicable certification, and it points you at downloadable instructions and tip sheets near the top of the screen for the W-9, the W-8BEN and the W-8BEN-E. Canada is the other country section with treaty-adjacent paperwork, and it is not a rate either: a developer based outside Canada may send Apple a GST506, a Quebec FP-2506-V, or both, depending on which taxes they are registered for.

Google's side is thinner still. Its Enter merchant tax information page names the W-9 and the Certificate of Foreign Status and stops there. Read on 21 October 2026, that page contains no mention of a treaty, a reduced rate or withholding anywhere in its body. The only hint that a non-US filer exists in Google's tax machinery is the 1042-S in its year-end form request rules.

The practical reading is that the treaty question belongs to you and an accountant in your own country, and it is answered on the IRS form itself rather than in either store's help centre. Do not pick a percentage off a forum post. A wrong certification on a US tax form is a harder thing to unpick than a wrong price, and unlike a price it is not a field you can simply edit back. If you are still working out the shape of the business, the subscription free trial rules decide more of your revenue than the withholding line will.

Play Console Help, Enter merchant tax information, read 21 October 2026

What does Google require instead?

A payments profile, a verified bank account and the same two IRS forms. The profile comes first. You create it from Payments settings in Play Console with the legal name of your business, which Google notes is shown to customers and on their receipts, and a legal business address as it appears on official documents. PO boxes are refused. You also give a named representative Google can contact, your business website, the product category you sell in, a customer support email, and the name that will appear on your customers' card statements. Google's own tip is to make that statement name recognisable, because an unrecognisable one invites chargebacks.

The bank account has three hard requirements. It has to be able to receive an electronic funds transfer or a wire, it has to be in the same country or region where the merchant account is registered, and it has to be denominated in that country's currency for a transfer or in US dollars for a wire. Merchants in the European Economic Area can nominate a SEPA-reachable account in any EEA country by contacting support. Verification then applies in the transfer countries only. US merchants can verify instantly with online banking credentials, which Google says it does not store, and everyone else waits for a small test deposit that should show up within 72 hours.

Tax info is a separate panel in the same profile, reached through Settings, then Payments Settings, then the entry for your country's tax info, then Add tax info or Update tax info. US merchants fill in the W-9 there. Everyone else answers the questions and submits the Certificate of Foreign Status. Google is specific about identifiers in a way that catches people out: an individual or sole proprietor uses the Social Security Number they file under, a corporation, partnership or limited liability company gives the Employer Identification Number with the business name, and the legal name has to be the exact one registered with the IRS. It also notes that you have a limited number of attempts to get the details right.

Then there is the reporting Google does on your behalf. Its page states that it must file Form 1099-K for Google Play developers who make more than 20,000 US dollars in gross sales and have more than 200 payment transactions a year, a figure read on 21 October 2026. Forms are issued per tax identification number, so two accounts under one EIN can be added together and cross the line that neither crosses alone. Massachusetts and Vermont have their own floor of 600 US dollars in total gross volume, from a change those states made for the 2018 tax year, and forms issued only because of that change are filed with the states rather than the IRS. Copies and revisions of a US year-end form can be requested from 5 February, and the non-US 1042-S from 15 March. The google play merchant account walkthrough takes the profile setup screen by screen.

Play Console Help, Enter merchant tax information, read 21 October 2026

When does the first payment actually land?

Apple pays within 45 days of the last day of the fiscal month in which the transaction completed, into the bank account and currency you gave it. Its bank consolidates proceeds for each currency you have sales in, so you get one payment per currency per fiscal month rather than a trickle, and it uses low-value transfers over wires where it can. Bank fees and intermediary charges come off the top, which Apple says in as many words. Financial reports for the previous fiscal month appear by the first Friday of the current one.

The payment threshold is the part worth checking before you panic about a missing transfer. Apple's reference page lists 60 bank country and currency pairs with a minimum payment of 0.02 US dollars, read on 21 October 2026, and sets a 40 US dollar minimum for every bank country or currency not on that list. So the same five dollars of earnings is either paid out immediately or sits there for months, purely on where your bank is. Nepal has a different wrinkle again: Apple notes a 5 percent advance income tax deducted by the local correspondent bank, which it does not handle itself.

Google runs a calendar month instead. Orders processed, refunded or charged back between the 1st and the end of a month are paid out around the 15th of the following month, and no deposits start on weekends or banking holidays. The balance has to clear a minimum at the moment of payout, which Google puts at 1 US dollar for local-currency payouts and 100 US dollars for USD wire transfers. Buyers also get two hours to cancel a purchase before the card is charged. Add the thresholds to the calendar gap and a first app can easily publish in one quarter and pay in the next, which is worth folding into the cost to publish an app before you count on the revenue.

App Store Connect Help, Provide tax information, read 21 October 2026