Your Google Play content rating is not handed to you by Google, it is calculated from an IARC questionnaire you answer yourself.

Where the questionnaire is and what it asks for

Open Play Console and go to the App content page. Google gives the path as Policy then App content, then Start. The first screen explains the questionnaire and asks for an email address. Google says it is used for correspondence with the International Age Rating Coalition. Appeals later run through a link in the certificate email IARC sends you. You then select a category, click Next, and answer the questions.

You can stop halfway. Save draft holds your progress, and Google limits you to one draft questionnaire per app at a time. In a section you have finished, Edit reopens the answers. Your responses generate calculated ratings on a Summary page. Read them, then click Submit. Afterwards the ratings and your questionnaires sit in the Target audience and content section of the same page.

The rating is not the only declaration there. Target audience sits on that page, and so does the google play data safety form. Order matters. Google lists three prerequisites for the Target audience and content section. You must have declared whether your app contains ads. You must have provided instructions for app access. And you must have added a privacy policy.

None of this is testable. There is no simulator step and no build flag. A content rating is a declaration about content, which is why an app that runs perfectly can still be unreleasable.

Google Play Console Help, content rating requirements for apps and games, read 3 October 2026

One questionnaire, a different authority in every region

Google lists the authorities and their territories. ESRB covers the Americas, PEGI covers Europe and the Middle East, USK covers Germany, ClassInd covers Brazil. The Australian Classification Board covers Australia, GRAC covers South Korea. Two are narrower than they look. Google says Australian Classification Board and GRAC ratings are only issued for games. Google runs its own Google Play Rating scale for apps in South Korea, and another for Russia. Territories with no participating authority get an IARC Generic rating, from Rated for 3+ to Rated for 18+.

The rating is not decoration. Google says ratings are used to block or filter content where that is legally required, and it names six places. They are the European Economic Area, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In those, for users determined to be minors, Play blocks the purchase of mature content such as 18+ apps and games. It also filters that content out of Play search and browse, except through deep linking.

Two outcomes are worth knowing before you submit. An authority can change your rating after a review, and you then retake the questionnaire to change your answers. An authority can also refuse classification. Google's account of that is specific. IARC emails the developer, Play Console shows Refused classification in place of a rating, and Google Play removes the app in that territory only. You appeal with the URL in the IARC email.

Apple does not use IARC, so this is two separate jobs

The App Store rating comes from Apple's own questionnaire, and IARC has nothing to do with it. Apple describes it as a list of content descriptors, in-app controls and capabilities, where you state the frequency of each content type. Your answers become an Apple global age rating, plus region-specific ratings where a regulator requires one. The path is Apps, then your app, then App Information, then the Set Up Age Ratings button. Apple names the roles that can do it: Account Holder, Admin, App Manager or Marketing.

The bands differ, and this is where older pages mislead. Apple's current values are 4+, 9+, 13+, 16+, 18+ and Unrated. If you are hunting for 12+ and 17+, those are the earlier labels. Apple says an age rating may vary by OS version. App Store Connect has a section called Operating Systems Earlier than Version 26, and that is where the older bands still show.

Apple is blunter than Google about having no rating. Its help page says an Unrated app cannot be published on the App Store, though it may go to alternative app marketplaces or websites. Two more Apple-only mechanics. Made for Kids appears only when the calculated rating is 4+ or 9+, and it locks once App Review approves the app. Override to Higher Age Rating raises the rating in every region.

So one questionnaire does not fill the other, and the bands do not map onto each other. The Apple side in full is on the app store age rating page.

App Store Connect Help, set an app age rating, read 3 October 2026

When you answer it again, and what is not published

Google names three cases. New apps submitted to Play Console need the questionnaire. Apps already live on Google Play without a rating need it. And all app updates where there has been a change to your content or features that would affect your responses need it again. That third case catches people: a feature triggers it, not a release.

To redo it, use Start new questionnaire on the Content rating page. Two warnings sit on the same help page. The calculated rating on the Summary page may not be the rating shown to users on Google Play. And updates and submissions can be rejected for misrepresenting an app's content, which can also lead to removal or suspension.

Here is what we could not confirm. Google's page says the questionnaire is required, but we found no published sentence saying Play blocks a release outright when the rating is missing. Apple says that plainly, Google does not. Google also does not publish the number of questions, how long a new rating takes to appear, or how often an authority overrides one.

Everything else on that page, from testing tracks to release management, is the rest of the console and a walkthrough of its own.