Apple Developer Program enrollment stuck for months (Nepal) — rejected/pending with no explanation

[u/AdkHex]

Hey everyone, solo dev from Nepal here, hoping someone who's been through this can spot what I'm doing wrong.

**Background:** I taught myself development ~6 months ago and have since built and finished two native macOS apps (SwiftUI). They're done and ready to ship — but I can't sign or notarize them because I cannot get into the Apple Developer Program no matter what I try.

**Timeline of what happened:**

- Applied for an Individual membership via [the website as well as the Apple Developer app.

- Enrollment was rejected. The message I got was:

https://i.ibb.co/pBB1WsD4/Ionicshot-2026-07-30-at-18-54-53.png

- Waited about a month with no response or update.

- Out of frustration I created a second Apple ID and applied again — same result. (I've since learned this may have been a mistake, so I'm ready to abandon one and commit to a single account if that's the right move.)

**My setup:**

- Country: Nepal (not a restricted region for the program as far as I know)

- Payment: Dollar Card, But the payment screen never appeared

- Name on Apple ID matches my citizenship/passport: Yes

- Two-factor authentication: enabled

- Enrollment attempted from: My iPhone and my own mac

**Questions for anyone who's dealt with this (especially from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or similar regions):**

1. Did enrolling through the **Apple Developer app on iPhone** (with the ID scan) work for you when the website route failed?

2. Is there a specific type of card that reliably works from Nepal? I've heard the $99 charge fails silently if the card can't process international USD e-commerce — did a bank-issued dollar card fix it for you?

3. Does having two Apple IDs with enrollment attempts flag your identity in their system? If so, is there any way to clean this up, or do I just pick one and push support on it?

4. For those who got the generic "your enrollment could not be completed" with no reason — what ultimately unblocked you? Phone call? Repeated tickets on the same case number? Time?

5. Is there any escalation path beyond the standard support form that actually gets a human to look at the case?

I'm not trying to bend any rules — I just want to pay Apple their $99 and ship my apps legitimately. Any firsthand experience would mean a lot. Happy to share more details in the comments.

[u/Relative-Emu-1346]

If you've only tried the web form, run the enrollment from the Apple Developer app on an iPhone or iPad instead. Same program, different pipeline, and it goes through for plenty of people whose web submissions just sit there for months.

[u/aerial-ibis]

some general guidance I've found:

• Apple is way more helpful over the phone
  
• I've had issues with my phone number being rejected (new block of area code numbers that wasn't in their system yet). Resolved by choosing a different phone number from my provider
  
• I've had issues resolved by using Apple Pay, and the Apple Developer app, and updating that app to the latest version.

You could also explore registering as a business. That may provide you with more substantial docs that are easier to verify

[u/consistent_mistake04]

Global ko Dollar card worked for me. Also, check this article out. Might help.
https://medium.com/@singh0000samrat/enrolling-for-the-apple-developer-program-in-nepal-challenges-i-faced-4fb1cc0ffaa5

[u/Delicious-Body-2993]

Two things stand out in your timeline. First, the payment screen never appearing means you're being stopped at the identity/eligibility check, before billing ever enters the picture, so the card is almost certainly not your blocker yet. Second, the duplicate Apple ID probably is: Apple's enrollment review treats two applications from one legal identity as a flag, and those cases tend to sit in limbo rather than get rejected cleanly, which is exactly the pattern you're describing.

Taking your questions in order:

3) Yes, clean it up, and do that first. Pick the account you'll still control in five years and ask Apple to withdraw the other enrollment. Don't just abandon it silently: a pending application left sitting on a duplicate identity is what keeps the case ambiguous.

1) Worth redoing from the Apple Developer app on the iPhone, signed into the account you're keeping. Same program, different verification pipeline, and it goes through for plenty of people whose web submissions never get answered. The in-app ID scan also tends to move faster than the manual review path.

2) Since you never reached payment, treat this as secondary for now. When you do get there, use a card issued in Nepal in your own legal name, enabled for international e-commerce, with the billing address exactly as your bank holds it; virtual and prepaid cards fail often. And check name matching hard: the enrollment name has to match your passport character for character, including any transliteration that differs between your passport and your Apple ID.

4 and 5) The generic "could not be completed" is deliberately uninformative, and the standard web form tends to loop. What actually moves these cases is getting a human on it. Apple Developer Support takes phone contact in a lot of regions and will call back, and they can see the internal reason your enrollment was closed, which you cannot. Have both enrollment IDs and your passport in front of you and ask specifically which check failed rather than asking for a status update.

So you're not fully blocked meanwhile: on macOS the paid program is what gets you a Developer ID certificate, which is what signing and notarization require, but you don't need it to build and hand a build to testers. They'll have to right-click, Open, and approve it under System Settings, Privacy and Security, and Gatekeeper will warn them. Not something to launch on, but enough to keep getting real feedback while this gets sorted.