This is educational material and does not constitute legal advice nor is any attorney/client relationship created with this article, hence you should contact and engage an attorney if you have any legal questions.
You just vibe coded your first (or several) iOS apps and finally set up your LLC (and remembered to assign your IP from yourself to your new LLC).
Unfortunately, all your apps still list your full name as the “Developer” instead of YourCompany, LLC.
The Apple Developer Program has two flavors
The Apple Developer Program comes in two account types. Individual accounts are for people building apps as themselves — your legal name appears as the developer on every app you publish. Organization accounts are for businesses, with the company name appearing as the developer.
If you started solo (as most indie devs do), you have an Individual account. Which means every app you’ve ever shipped is publicly attributed to you, the human, regardless of what entity legally owns it.
This is a mismatch problem. Legally, your LLC owns the app’s IP (if you properly assigned the IP), the contracts with users, and the revenue stream. But Apple’s public-facing listing says you, personally, are the publisher.
Why this mismatch matters
For most indie devs, this isn’t catastrophic. Your apps still work. Customers still pay. The world keeps spinning. But the mismatch creates real friction in three places:
Customer trust. A user looking at your app and seeing your personal name as the developer might wonder why the privacy policy and TOS reference a different entity. It’s a small inconsistency, but inconsistencies erode trust.
Tax and accounting. Apple issues 1099s and processes payouts based on the developer account. If your account is in your personal name but your business is in your LLC’s name, your bookkeeping has to constantly reconcile the two. Easier to just have everything flow through the LLC.
Due diligence and acquisitions. If you ever sell the app, an acquirer’s lawyer will notice immediately that the App Store listing doesn’t match the entity that owns the IP. Now you’re explaining a paper trail and producing migration documents at the worst possible moment.
Brand consistency. “Made by Acme, LLC” looks more legitimate than “Made by John Q. Founder” — especially as your business grows.
The fix: migrate from individual to organization
Apple actually has a dedicated process for this. It’s called migrating from an individual to an organization membership, and it preserves everything that matters: your apps stay live, your reviews stay attached, your ratings carry over, your in-app purchases keep working. The only thing that changes is the developer name on every listing.
What you’ll need:
A D-U-N-S number for your business. D-U-N-S is a unique identifier issued by Dun & Bradstreet that Apple uses to verify organizations. If your LLC doesn’t already have one, you can request it for free through Apple’s lookup tool at developer.apple.com/enroll/duns-lookup. Apple has a partnership with D&B that gets new D-U-N-S numbers issued in 5 business days or less — even just minutes or hours — versus weeks if you go directly through D&B.
A business website. Apple wants to verify your organization is real. A simple holding company landing page is enough — it doesn’t need to be elaborate. Just something at yourcompany.com that confirms your entity exists.
A business email address. hello@yourcompany.com works much better for verification than hello@gmail.com. Cloudflare Email Routing handles this for free if you don’t want to pay for a separate Workspace seat. Or, just set up a domain alias in your Google Workspace account for free.
Your EIN and basic business info. Legal entity name, principal address, phone number, contact details.
The actual process
Once you have those four things:
- Go to developer.apple.com → Account → Membership → Update your information
- Select “Switch to organization membership”
- Provide your D-U-N-S number, EIN, business address, and authorized contact
- Submit and wait
Apple’s stated turnaround is one business day. In practice, it can take longer — especially if your D-U-N-S record is brand new and they want to verify it independently. Some submissions get lost in the queue and need a follow-up. Don’t panic if you don’t hear back immediately, but do follow up after 3-5 business days if there’s silence.
What changes (and what doesn’t) after migration
Changes:
- Developer name on every App Store listing updates to your LLC
- Your previous individual account becomes deprecated
- New paid agreement and tax forms (W-9) need to be executed under the LLC
- Banking information needs to be updated to your business account
- All future payouts go to the LLC
Does NOT change:
- Your apps stay live throughout the migration
- Reviews and ratings carry over
- In-app purchases continue to work
- Customers don’t need to do anything
- Your Apple ID (the login) stays personal — you log in as you, typically via your iCloud account, but you manage the LLC’s account
That last point trips people up. Your Apple ID is your personal authentication. The team/organization you manage with that login is the LLC. Same way you might log into a corporate bank account with your personal credentials but manage the company’s funds.
A note on timing
Don’t migrate the day you form the LLC. Wait until:
- Your LLC is fully approved by your state
- You have your EIN
- You’ve signed the IP assignment transferring your apps to the LLC
- You’ve set up business email, a basic company website, and your bank account (probably just use Mercury for speed, simplicity, and startup-friendliness)
These prerequisites take maybe a week if you’re focused. Trying to migrate before they’re in place will get your application bounced.
The bottom line
If you’re an indie iOS developer who started as an Individual on the Apple Developer Program and later formed an LLC, your App Store listings are out of sync with reality. The fix is a free D-U-N-S number and a one-time migration that takes about an hour of your time and a week of waiting on Apple. Pair this with a properly executed IP assignment and your indie app business actually matches the legal structure you formed.
Hoag Law.ai provides flat-rate fractional general counsel services for AI-native startups, SaaS companies, and founders. If you need help with entity formation, IP assignment, or developer account migrations, get in touch.