Does your app need a terms of service?

There is a lot of confident writing online saying both stores require terms of service. Read the stores’ own pages and that is not what they say — so it is worth separating the three different questions hiding inside this one.

Is it required by Google Play?

No. Play’s User Data policy is specific about what must be linked and where: “All apps must post a privacy policy link in the designated field within Play Console, and a privacy policy link or text within the app itself.” A privacy policy, twice. It says nothing about terms of service, and there is no console field for one.

Play Console’s App content section asks for a privacy policy URL and, if your app has accounts, a data deletion URL. Terms are not among them.

Is it required by Apple?

Only in one case, and it is a common one: apps offering auto-renewable subscriptions. Guideline 3.1.2 requires functional links to both the privacy policy and a Terms of Use (EULA) — in the app itself and in the metadata.

You do not have to write that EULA. Apple publishes a standard one and you may link it instead; see the Terms of Use (EULA) guide for where each version goes.

For an app with no subscriptions, Apple does not demand terms either.

So why does nearly every app have them?

Because “not required by a store” and “you do not need them” are different statements. Terms are the document that answers questions no privacy policy covers:

• Who may use the app, and what happens when someone abuses it. Without terms you have no stated basis for closing an account.
• What you owe the user, and what you do not. Warranty disclaimers and liability limits live here, and they are the reason terms exist at all.
• What the user owes you — payment, acceptable use, content they upload.
• Which law applies and where disputes are heard.
• How the terms change, and what happens if a clause is unenforceable.

If your app has accounts, takes money, hosts user content or has any moderation at all, these are questions you will eventually need an answer to. Writing it before the dispute is cheaper than after.

What belongs in an app’s terms

A workable set of sections, in the order they usually read best:

Section	What it settles
Use of the app	Licence to use it, acceptable use, what gets an account closed
Accounts	Who may register, your right to suspend, the user’s right to delete
Purchases and subscriptions	Billing, renewal, refunds — and that the store, not you, processes payment
Intellectual property	Who owns the app, who owns what the user uploads
Disclaimer and limitation of liability	The core of the document
Changes	How you update the terms and how users are told
Contact	A real address

Notice what is not there: data handling. That belongs in the privacy policy, and duplicating it in two documents is how the two end up contradicting each other.

What to avoid

• Copying another app’s terms with the names changed. It is a copyright problem on top of a document that describes someone else’s business.
• Promising what you cannot do. Terms that say you delete all data instantly, or guarantee uptime, are worse than silence.
• Naming a jurisdiction at random. Governing law is a real choice with real consequences.
• Hiding them. If the terms are only reachable from a link you removed in the last redesign, they are not much use as a defence.

What AppFoyer does here

Terms are one of the five pages we generate, alongside the privacy policy, support and account-deletion pages. The template covers the sections above, fills in your app name, developer name, support address and store links, and adds the subscription sections — including Apple’s standard EULA link — when you tell it the app sells subscriptions on iOS.

The compliance checklist keeps the page flagged until it is published and, for a subscription app, until the EULA link is actually there.

As with every generated page, it is a template you complete and are responsible for, not legal advice. If your app touches money, health data or children, have a lawyer read it.

The authoritative sources

• User Data policy — Google Play Help. The quotation above is from this page.
• App Store Review Guidelines — Apple. Section 3.1.2 is the subscription rule.
• Licensed Application End User License Agreement — Apple’s standard EULA.

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