What EU trader status publishes on your store page.

Somewhere in App Store Connect there's a compliance form most developers filled in once, on the way to a submit button, and never opened again. Whatever went into it is now printed on the product page in all 27 EU storefronts: a street address, a phone number and an email, in plain text. I fetched a trader's page from the Irish storefront with nothing but curl, and the whole block was sitting in the server-rendered HTML. For a company that's the registered office. For a solo developer it's often the kitchen table.

Where the form came from

The EU's Digital Services Act requires online marketplaces to collect, verify and display contact details for the traders who sell through them. Apple cites Articles 30 and 31 in its own help pages, and it enforced them in two steps. From 16 October 2024, trader status was required to submit new apps and updates for the EU. From 17 February 2025, apps without it were removed from the EU storefronts until the status was provided and, where necessary, verified.

Two details in Apple's documentation are easy to miss. Every developer has to declare, including ones who don't distribute in the EU at all. And the status is set for the account but can be overridden app by app, which matters if one account carries both a paid product and a free side project.

"Shown in the EU" also means less than it sounds. A storefront is a path segment in the URL, not a check on where the visitor is. The same app's page under /us/ carried no contact block when I checked; under /ie/ and /de/ it did. Anyone, anywhere, can type the second one.

Who counts as a trader

The DSA's definition is broad: a person or company acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession. Apple's list of signals makes it concrete. You're probably a trader if the app earns revenue (a price, in-app purchases or advertising), if you engage in commercial practices toward consumers, if you're registered for VAT, or if the app was built in connection with your work. Apple says the list isn't exhaustive.

Read honestly, that settles most indie cases in a line: if the app makes money, you're a trader. The non-trader answer exists for hobby projects with no money attached, such as a free utility with no ads, no subscription and no connection to your job. Apple frames the choice as a self-assessment and points you to a legal adviser if you're unsure. This post isn't legal advice either, but it would be hard to find an adviser who reads "paid app, solo developer" as anything other than trade.

What each answer actually prints

The two answers put different text under the Provider heading, and reading the exact wording settles a lot of internal debate. On an English-language EU storefront, a trader's page says:

A non-trader's page says this instead:

That second sentence is the cost people miss when they reach for "non-trader" as if it were a privacy setting. On a free hobby app it's harmless. Next to a price tag or a subscription screen, it tells every European buyer that they have no consumer rights in the deal, and the declaration it rests on doesn't match what the app does. Choosing non-trader to hide an address swaps a privacy problem for a trust problem and a compliance one. The better move is to change what gets published.

Keeping your home address off it

What gets printed depends on the kind of developer account you hold, and the fix is different for each.

Organisation accounts don't type an address at all. Apple takes it from your D-U-N-S record, and it can't be edited in App Store Connect; changing it means contacting Apple. So the decision that matters was made when the company was registered. A company formed at a home address carries that address into its D-U-N-S record, and from there onto every EU product page. If you're about to incorporate, decide now which address you're willing to publish, because that's the one that will reach the store.

Individual accounts can enter a street address or a P.O. box. Apple verifies trader details against a current document, such as business or legal records, that confirms the name and address you entered. If you display an alternate address such as a P.O. box, it asks for extra documentation that ties you to it, like a receipt or a bill. For a solo developer that's the cleanest route: rent the box, keep the paperwork, enter the box.

The phone number and email are verified with one-time codes (with a manual route if your number can't receive them), then published exactly as entered. Neither has to be your personal one. Give it a number you're happy to let go to voicemail and an alias like appstore@yourdomain that lands in your support inbox. The company page I checked listed a dedicated support-appstore@ address, which is the right instinct.

Google Play's version isn't limited to Europe

Google's rule has a different trigger: money. Play Console's help says merchant accounts, meaning developer accounts with apps that monetise through a price or in-app purchases, must show their full address on Google Play, and that the address comes from the Google payments profile linked to the developer account. To change it you change the payments profile, and some changes, such as the country, mean creating and verifying a new profile.

It isn't gated by storefront the way Apple's block is. I opened a monetised app's listing on the US storefront, and its address, email and phone number were all listed under About the developer. Personal accounts that don't sell anything are treated differently: Google says their contact details are used to reach the developer and aren't shown on Play.

So on Play there's no form to think twice about. The switch is your first paid app or in-app product, and what goes public is whatever address your payments profile holds. Many solo developers filled that in at home, years before they planned to sell anything.

A ten-minute check

1. Open your own product page with an EU storefront in the URL (swap /us/ for /ie/ to keep it in English) and read the Provider block the way a stranger would.
2. On Google Play, open your listing and expand About the developer.
3. If either one shows your home: on an individual Apple account, switch to a P.O. box with proof of association; on an organisation account, go through Apple; on Play, update the payments profile.
4. Move the phone number and email to dedicated ones you can hand to strangers.
5. Look at per-app status if one account carries both a paid app and a genuinely non-commercial one, so each gets the declaration that fits it.

The rest of the page

The provider block is one of the last things a careful buyer reads before paying, and on a paid app it's part of the case for trusting you. Most of that case gets made higher up the page, in the screenshots. ShotCanvas covers that half: drop in your screens, pick a template, and export pixel-exact sets for every App Store and Google Play slot, or publish them straight to both stores.