How to Request an Expedited App Store Review (With a Template That Works)
Apple fast-tracks App Store review for critical bugs and hard deadlines. Here's when it grants an expedite, how to request one, and the exact template to paste.
The Argus Team
Reply Argus
Apple will fast-track your App Store review, but only for two situations: a critical bug that's actively hurting users, or a hard deadline tied to a real event. You request it through Apple's "Request an Expedited App Review" form after you've submitted the build — you describe the time-sensitive circumstances, and a reviewer decides. There's no guaranteed turnaround and no self-service button; approval is at Apple's discretion, and asking without a genuine emergency can cost you the next time you actually need it.
So the game isn't just knowing the form exists. It's qualifying honestly, wording the request so a reviewer reads it in ten seconds and says yes, and using the privilege rarely enough that Apple still trusts you. Below is exactly when it's granted, the step-by-step request, and a template you can adapt and paste straight into the form.
When does Apple actually grant an expedited review?
Apple keeps the bar deliberately narrow, because expediting your submission means bumping someone else's down the queue. In practice, requests fall cleanly into two buckets that Apple's own guidance calls out — and a large third bucket of things that will quietly get declined.
- Critical bug fix — your live app is crashing on launch, corrupting or losing user data, exposing a security or privacy hole, or has a core feature that's completely broken for a meaningful share of users. Anything where every hour in the queue is an hour real people are stuck on a broken build.
- Time-sensitive event — a launch genuinely pinned to a fixed calendar date you don't control: a sports final, a conference keynote, a regulated compliance deadline, a partner's coordinated announcement. The date has to be real and external, not "we'd like to ship this week."
- Won't qualify — routine feature releases, marketing pushes, App Store optimization tweaks, "we're behind schedule," or a self-imposed launch date you picked. None of these are emergencies to a reviewer, and calling them one erodes your credibility for the request that actually matters.
One nuance worth internalizing: expedited doesn't mean lenient. Your submission still gets the full guideline review; it just happens sooner. A build that would be rejected in the normal queue gets rejected in the expedited queue too, only faster. So don't use an expedite to rush a build you're not confident actually clears review.
How to request an expedited app review, step by step
The order matters. Apple expedites the review of a submission that already exists. The form doesn't accept code; it only moves your place in line. So the build has to be in the queue before you ask.
- 1
Step 1 — Submit the build first
Upload your fixed binary and submit it for review in App Store Connect as you normally would. It needs to be in the review queue (Waiting for Review / In Review) before an expedite request has anything to attach to.
- 2
Step 2 — Open the expedite form
Go to the Apple Developer contact page and choose the "Request an Expedited App Review" option (developer.apple.com/contact/app-store, expedite topic). You must be signed in with an account on the team that owns the app.
- 3
Step 3 — Identify the exact submission
Provide the app name, its Apple ID (the numeric App ID from App Store Connect, not your login), and the specific version/build you want expedited. Ambiguity here slows the reviewer down — be precise.
- 4
Step 4 — State the time-sensitive reason
In the notes, explain the emergency in plain language: what's broken or what deadline you're up against, who's affected and how many, and what this specific build does about it. Lead with impact, not backstory.
- 5
Step 5 — Submit and wait, once
Send it and leave it. Apple reviews expedite requests manually; there's no status page and no SLA. Don't re-submit the same request repeatedly — duplicate pleas don't speed anything up and read as noise.
The expedited review request template that works
The notes field is the whole ballgame. A reviewer skims dozens of these; yours wins by being specific, scoped, and honest in the first two sentences. Open with the impact, name the affected population, then point at exactly what the build fixes. Here's a structure you can adapt — replace the brackets and cut anything that isn't true.
App: [App Name]
Apple ID: [numeric App ID]
Version / build submitted: [e.g. 6.1.2 (build 812)]
Requesting expedited review for a critical bug fix.
What's broken: Since version 6.1 went live on [date], the app
crashes on launch for users on iOS 18.x [or: fails to load the
account screen / loses unsaved data]. This affects the core flow
of the app for an estimated [N] / roughly [%] of our active users,
and we are seeing it in crash logs and 1-star reviews right now.
What this build does: [6.1.2] contains the single, targeted fix
for this regression and nothing else. We have reproduced the crash
on affected devices and confirmed [6.1.2] resolves it.
Why it's time-sensitive: Every hour this build stays in the
standard queue is an hour affected users cannot [launch the app /
sign in / recover their data]. We would be grateful for expedited
review so we can get the fix to them as fast as possible.
Thank you.Don't cry wolf — expedites are a limited-trust resource
Apple is explicit that requesting expedited reviews for non-urgent submissions may result in future requests being declined. Treat it like a fire alarm, not a fast lane. Teams that expedite two or three genuine emergencies a year keep the privilege; teams that expedite every release burn it.
The moment your fix goes live, go win back the ratings
Here's the part most teams miss. You fought to get a critical fix reviewed in hours instead of days — and then the 1-star reviews that reported the bug just sit there, still one star, still the first thing the next installer reads. Shipping the fix is half the recovery. The other half is telling the people who complained that you heard them and it's done.
This is where a public developer reply earns its keep. Google announced at I/O 2019 that apps average a +0.7 star bump when developers respond to reviews, and academic work backs the mechanism: Hassan et al., studying 4.5 million reviews, found users are roughly 6× more likely to raise their rating after a developer replies (4.4% of responded-to reviewers versus 0.7% who got no reply). A reviewer who left one star over the exact crash you just patched is the single most winnable rating on your listing. The playbook for that turnaround is in [how to respond to negative app reviews](/blog/how-to-respond-to-negative-app-reviews), and the underlying evidence is in [does replying to app reviews raise your rating](/blog/does-replying-to-app-reviews-raise-your-rating).
App won't even open since the last update. Crashes to the home screen every single time I tap the icon. Deleting.
You're right, and I'm sorry — 6.1 shipped a launch crash on iOS 18 that we should have caught. We fast-tracked a fix and it's live now in 6.1.2. Update from the App Store and it should open on the first tap; if it still crashes, reply here with your device model and we'll get straight on it. Thanks for flagging it — it genuinely helped us find the pattern.
Multiply that reply by every review reporting the same crash, across both stores, ideally in each reviewer's own language, and doing it by hand right when you're already firefighting a release is exactly where it slips. [ReplyArgus](/features) watches your Apple App Store and Google Play reviews in one inbox, flags the ones matching the bug you just fixed, and drafts an on-brand reply for each — grounded in your past approved replies and your store listing — so you approve instead of writing a hundred variations of the same apology. Expedited review is Apple-only, and the two stores differ in more than just this; we break the mechanics down in [App Store vs Google Play review replies](/blog/app-store-vs-google-play-review-replies).
Frequently asked
- How long does an expedited App Store review take?
- Apple publishes no guaranteed turnaround for expedited reviews. In practice an approved request often clears within a few hours to a day, versus standard review that usually resolves within a day or so on its own. There's no status page — you'll get the normal review-state notification when it's done.
- Does Apple always approve expedited review requests?
- No. Every request is judged manually and granted at Apple's discretion. Critical bug fixes and genuine fixed-date events are the two categories most likely to be approved; routine releases and self-imposed deadlines are routinely declined.
- What counts as a valid reason to expedite?
- A critical bug in your live app (launch crash, data loss, security or privacy exposure, a core feature that's fully broken) or a launch pinned to a real external date you don't control, like a sporting event, keynote, or compliance deadline. Marketing timing and being behind schedule do not qualify.
- Can I request an expedited review for a brand-new app launch?
- Only if the launch is tied to a genuine time-sensitive event with a fixed date. "We want to go live sooner" isn't enough. If your launch is bound to a real external deadline, state that deadline plainly in the request notes and Apple will weigh it.
- Is there a limit on how many expedited requests I can make?
- There's no published hard cap, but Apple warns that requesting expedited review for non-urgent submissions may cause future requests to be declined. Reserve it for real emergencies so your requests keep landing when it counts.
- Does Google Play have an expedited review option?
- Not in the same form-based way. Expedited review is an Apple App Store process. Google Play review times vary by submission and don't offer a public "request faster review" form, so plan Play releases with more buffer and lean on staged rollouts instead.
Expedited review is one of the few genuine emergency levers Apple hands developers — narrow, discretionary, and worth protecting. Qualify honestly, write the request tight, use it sparingly, and it'll be there the day a launch crash is bleeding users. And the instant your fix is live, close the loop with the people who reported it. [Start free with ReplyArgus](/signup) — no card — and Argus drafts your first reply in minutes, in the reviewer's own language, so a bad week ends with ratings climbing back instead of a wall of one stars you never got to.
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