Apple's 2026 App Store Pricing & Tax Changes Guide

If you sell apps, in-app purchases, or subscriptions on the App Store, Apple has already changed your prices in at least 9 countries this year.

These aren't optional. If you let Apple auto-convert your prices, your prices in affected countries shifted without you doing anything. If you manually manage prices, you were not affected, but you might still be charging the wrong amount.

I manage 8 apps across both stores and I've been tracking these changes closely. Here's what happened, which countries were hit, and what you should do about it.

What Apple Changed in January 2026

On January 29, Apple announced tax and pricing adjustments across 9 countries. The changes went into effect immediately for developer proceeds, with pricing updates rolling out through February. (Covered by 9to5Mac here.)

Here's the full list:

Bhutan: New 5% Goods and Services Tax. Prices increased.
Finland: VAT decreased from 14% to 13.5% (news, magazines, books, audiobooks). Slight price decrease.
Ghana: COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy removed. Prices decreased.
Kazakhstan: VAT increased from 12% to 16%. Prices increased.
Lithuania: VAT decreased from 9% to 5% (news, magazines, books, audiobooks). Prices decreased.
Mauritius: New 15% VAT (effective February 16). Prices increased.
Russia: VAT increased from 20% to 22%. Prices increased.
Turkey: Digital Sales Tax decreased from 7.5% to 5%. Slight price decrease.
Zimbabwe: VAT increased from 15% to 15.5%. Slight price increase.

The biggest swings were in Kazakhstan (+4% VAT), Ghana (levy removed entirely), and Mauritius (new 15% VAT from zero).

Recent History: Apple Changes Prices More Often Than You Think

The January 2026 update wasn't a one-off. Apple has been adjusting prices and proceeds regularly:

November 2025: Pricing updated in Poland, Switzerland, and Turkey due to foreign exchange rate changes (announced October 30)
September 2025: Tax changes in Brazil (IOF 3.5%), Estonia (VAT 22% to 24%), Romania (VAT 19% to 21%), Philippines (12% VAT introduced), and Vietnam (multiple tax changes) (announced August 21)
January 2026: The 9-country update covered above

Bulgaria also switched its currency from BGN to EUR on January 1, 2026, which means all App Store purchases in Bulgaria now use euros. If you had BGN-specific prices, those are gone.

The pattern is clear: Apple adjusts pricing in multiple countries several times a year. If you're not actively monitoring your storefronts, your prices drift without you knowing.

Who Is Affected (and Who Isn't)

This depends on how you manage your App Store pricing:

You ARE affected if:

You let Apple auto-convert prices from your base country (the default for most developers)
You haven't manually set prices for the affected storefronts
You sell apps or non-subscription in-app purchases in these countries

You are NOT affected if:

You selected one of the affected countries as your base storefront (your base price stays fixed)
You manually manage prices in those specific countries
You only sell auto-renewable subscriptions (Apple excludes these from automatic price changes)

If your revenue comes from subscriptions, Apple won't touch your prices automatically. But that also means your subscription prices might now be misaligned with the new tax reality, especially in countries like Kazakhstan where VAT jumped 4 percentage points.

Why Exchange-Rate Pricing Falls Short

Apple's auto-conversion uses exchange rates and tax adjustments to keep prices "consistent" across storefronts. But consistent isn't the same as competitive.

Here's the problem: a $19.99 subscription in the US auto-converts to a currency-equivalent price everywhere, adjusted for exchange rates and taxes. But it doesn't account for what people can actually afford.

In Kazakhstan, where the average monthly wage is around $850, a $19.99 subscription is roughly 2.4% of monthly earnings. In the US, where the median is around $4,500, it's 0.4%. Your app isn't just more expensive in Kazakhstan after the VAT increase. It was already functionally unaffordable before.

This is what Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) pricing solves. Instead of converting currencies at market rates, PPP adjusts prices based on what a given amount of money can actually buy in each country.

The OECD recently updated its PPP dataset. If you're using PPP-based pricing for your apps, now is a good time to refresh your price calculations with the latest data.

How to Check Your Current Prices

If you haven't looked at your App Store Connect pricing recently, here's what to do:

Open App Store Connect and go to your app's Pricing and Availability section
Review the affected countries from the tables above. Look at what your app or IAP costs in those storefronts
Compare against your base price. Is the local price still reasonable given the tax change? Or is it now significantly higher than you intended?
Check subscriptions separately. Remember, Apple doesn't auto-adjust subscription prices. If you have subscriptions in Kazakhstan or Turkey, you need to update those manually

For context, Apple supports 900 price points across 175 storefronts and 45 currencies. Checking each one manually is realistic for 1-2 apps. If you manage more than that, it becomes a spreadsheet problem, which is exactly why I ended up manually setting prices country by country for years before building a tool to automate it.

What You Should Do Next

Here's my recommendation based on managing pricing across 8 apps:

Short term (this week):

Review your prices in Kazakhstan, Mauritius, and Turkey (the biggest tax swings)
If you sell subscriptions in those markets, manually adjust prices. Apple won't do it for you
Check if your Google Play prices in those same countries are still aligned. Tax changes on one store don't automatically fix the other

Medium term (this quarter):

Given Apple's pattern of multiple pricing rounds per year, expect more changes in 2026. Monitor Apple Developer News for announcements
Consider switching from exchange-rate-based pricing to PPP-based pricing. The OECD recently refreshed their PPP dataset, making this a good time to recalculate

Long term:

Stop relying on Apple's auto-conversion entirely. It keeps prices "equalized" but doesn't optimize for conversions in price-sensitive markets
Set country-specific prices for your top 20-30 markets. This is where localized pricing for subscription apps makes the biggest difference

If you manage multiple apps, doing this manually across 175 storefronts is painful. I built PricePush to automate exactly this: calculate PPP-based prices and push them to both stores in one click. There's a free tier if you want to see what your prices should look like.

Key Takeaways

Apple changed pricing in 9 countries in January 2026, and has done similar rounds multiple times in 2025. If you let Apple auto-convert your prices, your non-subscription in-app purchases have already shifted. Subscriptions were left untouched, which means they might now be misaligned.

The bigger question isn't whether Apple adjusted your prices correctly for taxes. It's whether your prices were right in the first place.

Exchange-rate conversion keeps prices numerically consistent. PPP-based pricing keeps them economically fair. With the OECD recently publishing fresh PPP data, it's a good time to revisit how you price your apps globally.

Try PricePush free and see what your prices should look like across 190+ countries.