iOS App Signing in 2026: What Has Actually Changed

ByScarlet iOS Team Updated on

Many articles about iOS app signing in 2026 describe changes that Apple has never announced. This guide sticks to what Apple has published on its own developer and support pages, and explains what each change means for people who sideload apps. The short version: Apple has opened new, regulated ways to install apps in the EU, Japan and Brazil, while the old routes that sideloading tools depend on still work the way they did, and can still be shut off by Apple at any time.

The Risks Have Not Changed

Before the new options, the part that matters most for sideloaders. Apps installed outside the App Store and outside Apple’s regulated channels depend on a certificate that Apple can revoke. When that happens, the apps signed with it stop opening. No signing tool can prevent this. Apps from these channels are also not reviewed by Apple, so you have to judge each one yourself. For how revocation works in practice, see our guide on how Apple detects sideloaded apps.

How Signing Works Today

Every app on an iPhone must be signed, and iOS checks that signature before the app runs. Outside the App Store, there are three common kinds of signing:

  • Free Apple ID (personal team): anyone can sign apps for their own device with Xcode or a tool built on it. Profiles expire after 7 days, and you can have at most 3 such apps on a device at once.
  • Paid Apple Developer account ($99 a year): profiles last a year, and you can register up to 100 devices of each type per year.
  • Enterprise certificate ($299 a year): Apple’s Enterprise Program is meant for large organizations (100 or more employees) to give in-house apps to their own employees. Apple’s terms say to use it “only to create proprietary, in-house apps for internal use”. Installers that use an enterprise certificate to distribute apps to the public are outside those terms, which is why Apple revokes such certificates.

For a closer look at the first two, see Apple Developer accounts vs free sideloading. For the hands-on side, see how to resign IPA files for sideloading.

EU: Alternative Marketplaces and Web Distribution

Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple allows two extra ways to install apps in the EU: alternative app marketplaces (from iOS 17.4) and downloads directly from a developer’s website, which Apple calls web distribution (from iOS 17.5). Both come with conditions:

  • Notarization: Apple describes it as a basic review that every app gets, whatever the distribution channel, aimed at security, privacy and device integrity. Apps sold through a marketplace or a website still go through it.
  • Developer requirements: to run a marketplace or distribute from a website, a developer has to meet at least one of Apple’s criteria, for example a financial-stability rating, a USD 1,000,000 standby letter of credit, or one million first annual installs.
  • Malware: Apple says that if it finds known malware in an app after it has been installed, “it will be prevented from launching, and new installations will be blocked.”

Apple lists three further updates for the EU with iOS and iPadOS 27.2: a new installation experience for marketplaces and website apps, an API that lets developers start downloads of their website-distributed apps from inside their own app, and the ability for EU users to keep installing these apps for 90 days while traveling outside the EU.

Japan: Marketplaces Since iOS 26.2

To comply with Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act, Apple opened similar options in Japan with iOS 26.2. Developers there can distribute apps through alternative app marketplaces, and marketplace operators need Apple’s authorization. As in the EU, apps distributed this way must be notarized. Apple’s page also covers alternative payments and browser engines other than WebKit in Japan.

Brazil

According to Apple’s support page, alternative app distribution is now offered in the EU, Japan and Brazil. For Brazil, Apple adds that your Apple Account country or region must be Brazil and you must actually be in Brazil. If you are eligible and do not see the options, Apple says to update to the latest version of iOS or iPadOS.

What Has Not Changed

  • Outside the EU, Japan and Brazil, Apple offers no regulated way to install apps from outside the App Store.
  • The free Apple ID limits (7 days, 3 apps) are the same as before. We know of no announcement that Apple will lengthen them.
  • Enterprise certificates are still meant for internal company apps, and Apple still revokes the ones it finds being used for public distribution.
  • Notarized marketplace apps are a separate channel. They do not make enterprise-signed apps any safer or longer-lived.

What This Means for Scarlet iOS

Scarlet signs with a shared certificate instead of your Apple ID. That is why it needs no computer and no weekly re-signing, and also why every app installed through it stops opening when Apple revokes that certificate. None of the EU, Japan or Brazil changes above alter that. When a revocation happens, you install the newly signed Scarlet and reinstall your apps through it, and how long that takes varies. Scarlet is confirmed on iOS 14 through iOS 26; iOS 27 support is reported by third parties but not officially confirmed. For the trust step after installing, see how to trust enterprise developer certificates on iPhone.

Which Route Fits You

  • You are in the EU, Japan or Brazil and the app you want is in an alternative marketplace: that route is notarized by Apple and is not tied to an enterprise certificate.
  • You want apps that are not offered in any regulated channel and have a computer: signing with your own Apple ID means 7-day re-signing, but no shared certificate that can be revoked for everyone at once.
  • You want no computer at all: an enterprise-signed installer such as Scarlet iOS is the simplest route, with the revocation risk described above.

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