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Apple increases iOS and Mac Developer Program pricing in EU countries to £79/€99

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Apple has quietly increased the cost of its iOS & Mac Developer Programs in some EU countries with price hikes confirmed for at least the UK and Germany. In Germany, the programs are up from the previous €80/year to €99/year, while in the UK pricing has been adjusted from £60/year to £79/year.

While the price increase is already live in at least the UK and Germany, pricing for the program in the US remains at $99/year.

Apple requires app developers to enroll in its developer programs for both the iOS App Store and Mac App Store in order to distribute apps through the stores and access Apple’s developer tools alongside early iOS and OS X releases.

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It’s unclear if the change could be a result of currency fluctuations or perhaps a price increase that will also come to other countries at some point.

Apple has been known to adjust product prices according to how foreign currencies are performing at any given time. Late last year the company stopped online sales to Russian customers to review pricing amid ‘extreme’ currency fluctuations, for instance. It also adjusted prices for apps sold on the Russian App Store.

In December, Apple also announced changes to the way it handles tax for customers making purchases on its European App Stores. Starting today, Apple will begin calculating charges based on the customer’s home country rather than a standard VAT rate across all EU countries.

 Let us know in the comments below if pricing for the developer program in your country has changed.

(via apfelpage.de)

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Comments

  1. Paolo Di Landro - 9 years ago

    Damn’t. I guess this is because of the new refunding polices, so even though Apple lose their 30%, they gain £10 per developer.

  2. Kris Lord (@krislord) - 9 years ago

    What VAT rate did Apple use prior to the price increase? I know they use an Irish enitity for App Store purchases which charges 23% VAT. Do they uses the same entity for developer fees? It seems odd the price has gone up just as the VAT treatment has changed.

    • greg999 - 9 years ago

      Purely a coincidence ;). Guess they have to pay for the programming of all the computations that have to be done now for the VAT.

    • I renewed my iOS Dev membership in December 2014, and while I’m registered in the UK, I paid 23% VAT (the Ireland rate)

  3. Welcome to the EU. The land of huge prices. For example when buying electronics here, while I buy only 1 item here I could buy 2 in the US for the same price I spent.

    • The higher prices in EU is because of taxes and 2 year warranty. Most other countries have 90 days warranty.
      EU is about “free market” but only for the rich. Its insane that I have to pay 25% VAT when I buy a digital song that is sold from Luxembourg. In EU we should pay VAT in the country where we buy the stuff. That is the EU way. But no.. Not for us poor people.
      Especially since companies can deduct VAT.
      +
      US dollar have gone up 20% the last 6 months because of our incompetent politicians in EU.

      We need to have a new French revolution. The 1% is like the aristocrats back then. They take everything and leave us nothing. (Sweden = minimum tax rate 75% for workers + the goverment take 25% when I buy a mac. Slavery is better. They had at least free food and housing)

      • Ian Wellock - 9 years ago

        You should be really happy right now then: the VAT change is exactly as you want – you pay VAT based on the country you buy stuff in, not the country of sale.

  4. Interesting the Apple snuck these changes out to coincide with the new EU VAT changes.

    Electronic downloads, which includes the developer program, sold through the Apple.com store were previously charged at Irish VAT rates of 23%. The new EU rules mean UK VAT of 20% should be charged. If this was a VAT related change the price should have dropped!

    What’s actually happened is that, net of VAT, Apple has increased the cost of the program from £48 to £65 (rounded). A 35% price increase!

  5. It’s not enough to buy a mac computer for programming ios device(s)? It’s not enough to buy an ios device (or more) to test your apps? It’s not enough to buy an ios device per year for always be up to date with potential users for your apps? Probably it’s not enough for apple.

  6. Bob Foster - 8 years ago

    It amazes me how much people are defending Apple on this case without even considering few facts.

    1. Apple has ridiculous amount of money in the bank.
    2. Big chunk of that money was made with 30% cut from the apps and from the hardware sales.
    3. Yes 100$ or 100 is not that much = it´s not that much for Apple either.
    4. That money is certainly not going towards the better quality of ios sdk´s or xcode. In fact every release seems to break things that used to work before. With the introduction of Swift, I expect this to be huge problem for few years to come.
    5. Yes there are developer tools and programs that are extremely highly priced, but it doesn´t mean they are same or targeting similar developers. You should be comparing those that are similar (Android, Windows phone, etc.), which are cheap and will probably be getting cheaper if not free.

    Apple will be always be Apple but people shouldn´t be defending their every move just because it´s Apple.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.