Every first-time Android publisher hits the same wall in Play Console. You are wrapping up your store listing, ready to send the app for review, and the dashboard tells you that you cannot go further until you complete the content rating questionnaire. This is the IARC questionnaire. It takes me ten to fifteen minutes when I already know the answers for the app. It can eat an afternoon when I do not.
The questionnaire is not a feature of your app. It is a classification step: your answers are turned into age ratings by rating authorities around the world. This guide covers what Google's documentation says about how it works, what happens without a rating, when you have to redo it, and a couple of commonly repeated claims that did not survive a check against the docs.
What is the Google Play content rating questionnaire?
The content rating questionnaire is a form in Play Console, run with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), that asks about the nature of your app's content. Your answers are used to assign age ratings from multiple rating authorities at once, such as ESRB and PEGI. Every app on Google Play must have a content rating.
The requirement comes from the Content Ratings policy in Google's Developer Program Policy. You must complete the questionnaire for each new app you submit and for every existing app that is active on Google Play. The stated purpose is to inform consumers, especially parents, of potentially objectionable content inside an app.
You do not pick the rating. You describe the app, and the rating is calculated. Google's consumer help page says ratings are typically based on factors including sexual content, violence, drugs, gambling, and profane language. That is why the questions lean on mature content categories even when your app is a note-taking tool, and why the answers are not always intuitive.
How do you complete the content rating questionnaire?
Open your app in Play Console and go to Policy, then App content, and click Start. Enter an email address for IARC, select your app's category, and answer the questions. Review the calculated ratings on the Summary page, then submit. You can save a draft along the way and come back to it.
Those steps are from Play Console's help page on content rating requirements. A few things I do every time:
- Use an inbox you read. The email address is used for correspondence with IARC. If a rating authority ever acts on your app, that is where you hear about it.
- Read before you answer. In my experience the category you choose and your early answers shape the questions that follow, so I read through the whole form once before committing to anything.
- Keep a copy. I save my answers and the Summary page. Six months later, when the app has changed, I can see exactly what I declared.
- Expect a difference. Google notes that the calculated rating shown on the Summary page may not be the rating shown to users on Google Play.
The same App content page holds your other declarations, including target audience and the Data safety section. None of them are hard, but all of them block a launch, which is why they sit early on my pre-launch checklist instead of on release day.
Which rating authorities rate your app?
One questionnaire produces ratings from several authorities: ESRB for the Americas, PEGI for Europe and the Middle East, USK for Germany, ACB for games in Australia, ClassInd for Brazil, and GRAC for games in South Korea. Countries without a participating authority get a generic IARC rating instead. Each system uses its own labels.
| Rating system | Where it applies | Labels shown to users |
|---|---|---|
| ESRB | North and South America | Everyone, Everyone 10+, Teen, Mature, Adults Only |
| PEGI | Europe and the Middle East | PEGI 3, 7, 12, 16, 18 |
| USK | Germany | All ages, 6, 12, 16, 18 |
| ACB | Australia (games only) | General, Parental Guidance, Mature, MA 15+, R 18+ |
| ClassInd | Brazil | All ages, 10+, 12+, 14+, 16+, 18+ |
| GRAC | South Korea (games) | All, 12+, 15+, 19+ |
| Google Play rating | South Korea (apps) and Russia | 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+, then 19+ or 18+ |
| IARC generic | Everywhere else | 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+, 18+ |
Each authority assigns its own rating from the same set of answers, so the label on your listing depends on where the user is. Authorities can also step in after the fact. Google's help page says rating authorities participating in IARC may change your app's rating after a review.
What happens if your app has no content rating?
Google's Content Ratings policy does not allow apps without a content rating on Google Play, and unrated apps can be removed from the store. A rating that exists but is wrong is also a risk: misrepresenting your app's content may result in removal or suspension, and updates and submissions can be rejected for it.
Beyond the store listing badge, Google's help page lists what ratings are used for:
- Helping consumers, especially parents, judge whether an app is appropriate.
- Blocking or filtering your content in certain territories, or for specific users, where legally required.
- In the European Economic Area, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, for users determined to be minors: blocking the acquisition and purchase of mature content such as 18+ rated apps, and filtering it from search and browse pages.
- Evaluating your app's eligibility for special developer programs.
There is one more outcome worth knowing about. On a limited basis, a rating authority can refuse classification for an app in its territory. IARC notifies you by email, Play Console shows "Refused classification" in place of a rating, and Google Play removes the app in that territory only. The email includes a link for appeals.
You will also read that certain countries "mandate ratings" and that an unrated app cannot be published there. Google's documentation does not publish a list like that, so I do not repeat it. What the docs do state is the list above: filtering where legally required, restrictions for minors in named regions, and territory-level removal after a refused classification. A rating that does not match the app is also one of the reasons Android apps get rejected.
The answers that trip people up
User-generated content
Google's User Generated Content policy defines UGC as content that users contribute to an app, and which is visible to or accessible by at least a subset of the app's users. Chat, comments, forums, public profiles, and shared image uploads all fit. A private note that only its author can see does not fit that definition.
A common piece of advice is that any webview or Discord embed automatically counts as user-generated content. I could not find that in Google's documentation, so I am not going to repeat it. The test Google gives you is the definition: ask what your users can contribute and who else can see it. Whether the screen is native or loaded from the web does not change the answer.
If your app does have UGC, answer honestly and then read the policy, because the questionnaire is the small part. The policy requires users to accept terms of use before they create content, an in-app system for reporting and blocking objectionable content and users, and ongoing moderation. Separately, Google Play shows interactive features on your listing, such as whether users can interact with each other or whether the app shares location. Google's help page describes those as separate from the content rating itself.
Content rating is not target audience
The rating describes your content. The target audience declaration, a different section of the App content page, describes who the app is for. There you select age groups: 5 and under, 6 to 8, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, and 18 and over. If any selected group includes children, the app must comply with Google Play's Families policy, including using only Families Self-Certified Ads SDKs to serve ads to children and users of unknown age.
So an Everyone rating does not make your app a kids' app, and it does not carry the Families obligations by itself. The target audience selection does. The Families policy also names the IARC questionnaire directly as one of the places where your answers must be accurate and kept up to date.
Ads count too
Google's ads policy says the ads and offers shown within your app must be appropriate for the content rating of your app, even if your own content is otherwise compliant. If you run an ad network, check its content filtering settings against the rating you were given.
When do you have to redo the questionnaire?
You must submit a new questionnaire whenever you change your app's content or features in a way that would affect your answers. Google lists three cases where it is required: new apps, existing active apps without a rating, and updates with that kind of change. A rating override by an authority is another reason to revisit it.
The test is not "did I ship a big feature." It is "would I answer any question differently today." Adding chat to an app that had none changes an answer. So does adding content in one of the rated categories, like violence in a new game mode or gambling-style mechanics. A bug-fix release does not.
This is the one people forget, because the questionnaire feels like a one-time setup task. A content rating that was not updated after a feature addition is one of the mismatches I describe in the solo developer's guide to Play Console. I re-read my saved answers on every release that adds a feature, and it goes on the list of Play Console checks before publishing.
Where IOn Emit fits
The questionnaire is short. The hard part is knowing what each question is really asking before you commit to an answer. IOn Emit's 9-step Pre-Flight Wizard includes Content Rating and Target Audience steps. It walks you through the Play Console questions with plain-English explanations, copy-to-clipboard answers, and a guide panel that links directly to each Console section. The wizard is part of the free tier.
Content rating checklist
- List what the app contains first. Violence, sexual content, language, drugs, gambling, user interaction, location sharing.
- Open Policy, then App content, and click Start. Use an email address you actually read.
- Read the form before answering. Choose the category carefully and save a draft if you need to check something.
- Answer for the app as it ships today. Include anything users contribute that other users can see.
- Review the Summary page and keep a copy. Store your answers with the project.
- Set target audience separately. Then check that your ads fit the rating.
- Redo it when an answer changes. New content or features that affect your responses need a new questionnaire.
This post is part of our app publishing guides for indie Android developers.