Requirements for enrollment:
- The only requirement that you need to enroll at the iOS Developer Membership program is a DUNS Number if you are enrolling as a company. A DUNS Number is like a corporate identification number generated by the D&B. If you not have this number, you need to request it online with the respective D&B branch/site in your country. You can find the D&B in your country here. The DUNS Number is created by free but you usually need to wait some weeks (in the US it is created within 1 month, while in other countries it can take up to 3 months to be generated). If you are in a rush, you can pay a fee and have the DUNS Number generated very quickly, sometimes in the same say.
If you don't know if your company already has a DUNS Number, you can search the D&B database thru this link.
Steps for enrolling in the iOS Developer Program
After you have your DUNS Number generated, Apple recommends you to wait 7-14 days in order to have the Apple database updated with your DUNS Number.
- Access the iOS Developer Program page (link)
- In the next page, it will ask you if you want to login using your current Apple ID (if you have one) or create a new one. If you are creating the account for your company, you probably will create a new Apple ID.
- In the next page, it will ask if you want to create a Individual Account or a Company Account. In our tutorial we creating a company account, so click in the "Company" button.
- Fill the information about your new Apple ID that you are creating. You can use your own information (name, address,...). In my case, I used my name but my company address (since I was creating that Apple ID for my company).
- The next pages are pretty straight forward, you just need to complete some profile questions, read and accept the Apple Developer Agreement and etc.
- In some point it will ask about your company information, including the company "Legal Entity Name", address and phone number. The Legal Entity Name must match the Company Name in the D&B database (DUNS Number). That name will also be the "Seller Name" that will appear in the App Store below your apps. I think that in the past you did have to use you Legal Entity Name as the Seller name, but today you are obligated to. Since the company info that you will enter needs to be equal to the info in the D&B database, I suggested you to look your company info at the D&B database thru this link. If you enter the info and it does not match with the D&B info that Apple has, you will receive an error message and will not be allowed to continue. If you enter wrong information 3 times, Apple may suspend your enrollment. But the funny thing is that they will not tell you that you have been suspended. It will only tell you that the information provided does not match and wil tell you to contact the Apple Support. So, if this happens to you, contact the Apple Support so they can release your account. The 2 times that I contacted them, they answered me in less than 24 hours. Also, remember that you recently created your DUNS Number or updated any information requested by Apple (Company name, address, phone) you may have to wait 7-14 days. This is because the D&B database that Apple has is not realtime updated... This site here shows you a unofficial schedule of when Apple update its D&B database.
- After you successfully entered your company info you will have to wait to Apple verify the information that you provided. Usually they will call you at the phone number registered in your Apple ID. In my case they called me within 2 hours after I submitted.
- After Apple called you and verified your info, you will receive a link to pay the iOS Developer Membership fee. You will have to use a credit card. Use a credit card that has a billing address that matches one of the address that you registered with your Apple ID (You can add more than one address to your account.). I got to know some people that used a credit card with different name/address than registered in the Apple ID account and Apple entered in contact with them and requested some (notarized!) documents to verify that it was not a fraud. So, if you want to save time, I recommend you to use a credit card that matches the name / address of your Apple ID account. After paying, you may have to wait 2 business day to have your order processed (Yes, this is something that I also do not understand.... I had to wait 2 days to have my credit card billed....)
- So, after paying the fee you will receive an confirmation within 2 business day that your order was billed and then you will receive another email with instructions to activate your Dev Account.
So, these were the steps that I faced to create my iOS Dev Account. I hope that it may be useful for you. As you can see, creating the Apple Dev Account is something that you cannot do in the same day (different from Google Play Developer Account, where you can create a new account in less than 10 minutes).
Anyway, at least now Apple does not requires you to send by fax your company documents (I heard that that was the normal procedure not so long time ago....).
So, creating a iOS Developer Account will probably take from you 1-2 weeks. If you do not have a DUNS Number, you may add 1-3 months do that 1-2 weeks if you do want the free DUNS Number.
If you have any question, just let me know!
See you.