What do App Review rules require for digital goods and subscriptions, and how do external purchase links and regional rules change that?

What I am confident about. Under the App Store Review Guidelines, digital content, features and subscriptions unlocked inside an app generally must use In-App Purchase (guideline 3.1.1); subscriptions must provide ongoing value, be clear about price, renewal and trial terms before purchase (3.1.2), and an app must offer a way to restore purchases. Exceptions have long existed for physical goods and real-world services, person-to-person services, and "reader" style apps with limited linking, and you cannot gate IAP behind unrelated actions, use your own unlock keys for digital goods, or mislead about what is free. Apple takes a commission on IAP (standard and small-business tiers) and requires a clear subscription disclosure. Review rejections cluster around missing restore, unclear price or trial text, unfinished products, and links or wording that steer users away from IAP where that is not permitted.

What changes by region, and what to verify. The landscape moved repeatedly between 2024 and 2026: the EU's Digital Markets Act enabled alternative distribution and payment options with their own terms and entitlements; Japan and other jurisdictions introduced their own regimes; and in the United States court rulings changed what link-out buttons are allowed. I cannot reproduce the current text reliably from memory, so for a real product read the current guidelines and the StoreKit External Purchase documentation (there are entitlements to request, an ExternalPurchase API with a disclosure sheet, and reporting obligations in regions that require them). Design so this is configuration: a per-storefront policy table (which regions may show an external link, which disclosure, which commission reporting), checked against Storefront.current with a server-side switch, and with the IAP path always working as the default. Nothing in this answer was run; it needs App Store Connect and current policy text.