If you've downloaded an app for your child recently and been asked to confirm your own age, or received an approval prompt you don't remember setting up, you've bumped into one of the biggest shifts in children's app safety in years. A wave of US state laws, generally called App Store Accountability Acts, moves age verification and parental consent out of individual apps and into Google Play and the Apple App Store themselves.
It's a genuinely useful change, and it's also widely misunderstood. Here's the plain-English version of what these laws do, where they stand as of July 2026, and, most importantly, what they still leave to you.
The old system, and why it didn't work
Until recently, age checks on mobile were mostly done by each app on its own. That meant a screen asking a child to enter a birthday or tap a button that said "I am 13 or older", with nothing to stop them tapping it. Meanwhile, the store knew a great deal about the account but wasn't obliged to act as gatekeeper.
The result was a system where responsibility fell between the cracks: developers said the store should verify age, the store said developers should police their own content, and children downloaded whatever they liked. The new laws pick a side. They say the store, which already handles identity, payment, and family accounts, is best placed to do the check once and pass a reliable age signal to everyone else.
What the app store accountability laws require
The details differ state to state, but the core obligations are consistent:
- Verify the account holder's age. App stores must establish whether a user is an adult or a minor, rather than accepting a self-declared birthday.
- Sort minors into age brackets. Typically ranges such as under 13, 13–15, and 16–17, so protections can scale with age.
- Link a minor's account to a parent. A child's account must be tied to a verified adult who holds the consent.
- Get parental consent to download. Approval is required before a minor can install an app, and in most versions before in-app purchases and major account changes too.
- Pass an age signal to developers. Developers receive an age-bracket signal so they can adjust the experience, and they're generally required to act on it.
- Re-request consent after significant changes. If an app materially changes its terms, consent may need to be obtained again.
Where things stand as of July 2026
Three states have enacted these laws so far, and the rollout has been anything but tidy:
- Texas was first, with an effective date of January 1, 2026. Enforcement was initially blocked by a preliminary injunction, but the Fifth Circuit stayed that injunction in late May 2026, so the law is operating while the underlying case continues. Texas is currently the one to watch, because it's the version actually running.
- Utah passed its version in 2026, but the obligations on app stores and developers were pushed back and now sit in 2027.
- Louisiana enacted its law with a July 1, 2026 start, then passed a follow-up bill in May 2026 delaying it by a year to July 2027.
More states have similar bills in progress, and at the federal level, proposals covering minors' online safety have repeatedly stalled. The practical upshot for parents: the direction of travel is clear even though the calendar keeps moving. Both major app stores have been building age-signal and parental-consent infrastructure that applies well beyond the states that mandated it, so most families will see these flows regardless of where they live.
What actually changes for you
If your child has their own device or account, expect three practical differences.
1. Your child's account has to be set up honestly
The whole system rests on the account being registered as a child's account, linked to you. If your eight-year-old is using an account created with an adult birthday, none of these protections apply, and no law will fix that. Setting up a genuine child account through Google Family Link or Apple's Family Sharing is now the single highest-value thing a parent can do, and it takes ten minutes. Our walkthrough of Google Play parental controls covers the setup end to end.
2. You'll approve downloads from your own phone
Requests arrive as a notification you approve or decline. It's the same mechanism families have used for years through Ask to Buy and Family Link, now mandatory rather than optional in covered states. Worth knowing: approving an app is a decision, not a formality. The two-minute store check is exactly the moment to run it, and our guide to choosing safe mobile games for kids lays out what to read before you tap approve.
3. Some apps will behave differently for a child account
Because developers now receive an age signal, apps may switch off features for younger users, disable personalized advertising, restrict chat, or decline to serve certain content. That's the intended effect. It also means an app might look different on your child's device than on yours, which is worth remembering before you conclude a feature is broken.
The gap these laws don't close
Here's the part that matters most, and gets the least attention. Age verification governs who installs an app and who approved it. It says almost nothing about what the app does once it's on the device.
An app can be perfectly compliant, age-rated for young children, downloaded with full parental consent, and still show your five-year-old a full-screen video ad for something you'd never choose. It can still push in-app purchases, still use streaks and timers designed to keep a child playing, still collect more data than a colouring game plausibly needs. Consent at the door isn't a review of what's inside.
So the checks parents were already doing remain exactly as important as before:
- Look for the "Contains ads" and "In-app purchases" labels on the store listing. Our guide to verifying a kids game is genuinely ad-free shows where they hide.
- Read the Data safety section. A sticker or puzzle game has no business asking for location or advertising identifiers.
- Prefer apps that work offline. An app that never connects can't serve fresh ads or pull in content nobody reviewed, which is also why they're ideal for travel.
- Prefer a one-time purchase over an ad-funded free app. It changes who the app is built to serve, as we argued in kids apps without subscriptions.
How this fits with COPPA
Parents often assume these new laws replace COPPA. They don't. COPPA is a federal privacy law that limits how apps collect and use personal data from children under 13, and it applies to the app developer. The state app store laws cover all minors under 18, focus on verification and consent rather than data, and place the main duty on the store. They stack; they don't substitute. An app can be COPPA compliant and still be a poor choice for your child, and it can pass an age gate without being COPPA compliant at all.
A practical checklist for the rest of 2026
- Set up your child's device with a real child account linked to yours, not a shared adult account.
- Turn on purchase approval and authentication for every purchase, whether or not your state requires it.
- Treat every approval prompt as a decision point: open the listing and run the two-minute check before tapping approve.
- Keep a couple of known-good offline apps installed so there's always something safe available without a fresh download.
- If you share your own phone with a young child, use screen pinning or Guided Access to keep them in the one app you opened.
Where Sticker Builder fits
Sticker Builder is the kind of app these rules are ultimately trying to make more common, so it needs very little from them. Children ages 2–8 drag stickers to complete cheerful scenes. There are no ads, no third-party tracking, no chat, no in-app purchases, and no subscription; it works fully offline and is COPPA compliant, with a one-time $1 price on Google Play. There's no age-gated content to unlock, nothing served in from outside, and nothing for a child to buy. Approve it once and you're done thinking about it.
Frequently asked questions
What is app store age verification?
It means the store itself establishes how old an account holder is and, for minors, links the account to a parent who approves downloads and purchases. The check happens once at the store level instead of inside every app, and the store passes an age signal to developers. Recent US state laws require it.
Do parents have to approve every app download now?
If your child's account is registered as a minor in a state where the law is in force, yes, for downloads and in most cases in-app purchases. Texas's law is the first in operation. Families using Family Link or Ask to Buy already had this flow; it's now a requirement rather than an option.
Does age verification make kids apps safe?
No. It controls who installs an app and who approved it, not what the app does afterwards. An approved app can still contain ads, purchase prompts, chat, or data collection, so the store-listing checks still matter.
What is the difference between COPPA and the new app store laws?
COPPA is a federal privacy law about data collection from under-13s and applies to developers. The state app store laws cover all under-18s, focus on age verification and parental consent, and apply mainly to the app stores. They work alongside each other.
Try Sticker Builder
If you'd like one app on the device you never have to think twice about approving, Sticker Builder was built for it: kids 2–8 drag stickers to complete cheerful scenes at their own pace. Zero ads, zero tracking, no chat, no in-app purchases, fully offline, COPPA compliant, and a one-time $1 on Google Play.
Download Sticker Builder on Google Play →