After a long day of work, you finally submitted a new build/update for review on App Store, hoping to get it in the hands of your users as soon as possible! All seems good! Until, your app’s submission status is showing “Waiting for Review” for days/weeks now!!!
Don’t sweat! We’ve all been there. Here are a few things you can try when your app gets stuck in review for longer than usual, and things to avoid in this scenario.
Apple expedited review
This is a service offered by Apple that allows you to request an expedited review for your submissions.
As mentioned in the app store’s review docs, 50% of the apps usually get reviewed within 24hrs, and 90% of them within 48hrs. If it’s not an urgent update/bug that needs to go live immediately and can wait, then make sure you’ve waited for at least 48hrs before you try requesting an expedited review.
Requesting an expedited review
To request an expedited review, simply go to this Apple expedited review page to request expedited review for your app.
Make sure you use this service sparingly and only for urgent updates. Submitting excessive expedited review requests may result in your future expedite requests not being granted.
Post requesting expedited review
Based on my experience, and from other developers I’ve heard, after you expedite your review, expect to get an updated status on your submission within the next 24hrs or early in some cases.
Post 24hrs, and still nothing
If your app review status still shows “Waiting for review” after expediting a review, then you can try doing the following things,
Wait a bit longer:
I know this advice sucks, cause you’ve been already waiting for a few days now, and eagerly waiting to get some update on your submission status. But trust me, sometimes Apple review just takes time even after expediting a review, and all you can do is wait.
Pull your submission and submit a new one:
If you really can’t wait, then this is something that has worked for me in the past a few times. But remember, this is not something that’s guaranteed to work, and may not have any impact at all on your app review times.
Pull your submission out of the review by going to your submission review status page, and clicking “Cancel Submission”. And then submit a new build for review. The new submission will put you back in the review queue.
I’m not sure why doing this works sometimes, but it’s something you can try.
Still stuck in “Waiting for review”
If your app submission still shows “Waiting for review” after more than a week or two or much longer, and trying the above mentioned solutions didn’t work for you, then you can try contacting Apple review support team through an email or phone call here.
Why is your submission review taking so long?
There’s not really a straightforward and clear answer for this. There can be multiple reasons behind why a submission is taking longer to get reviewed, few things that may affect submission review time,
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Holidays: Yes, Apple review team may not be operating at full capacity during holidays, and can result in longer review times with limited capacity.
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Brand New App: It’s common for brand new apps on their first few submissions to have longer review times.
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Floodgates are open: You’re probably aware of the flooding of App Store with vibe-coded apps. A recent report from New York Times on new Sensor Tower data shows that there’ve been a surge in new apps submitted to app store in the first half of 2026 which was almost as many as the number of apps submitted in 2025.
Last year, the number of new apps released in the App Store grew 30 percent to about 600,000, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm. In the first half of this year, new apps doubled to about 560,000. […] But […] downloads from the App Store haven’t taken off. Last year, they grew 3 percent to 35.4 billion, according to Sensor Tower. In the first half of this year, downloads grew 2 percent to 17.6 billion.
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App’s Documentation and Content Validation: Apple documents a few more reasons that may be causing longer review times for you. These are mainly related to your app’s documentation, authenticity, policies, content of your app, etc. Read more about them here.
Conclusion
I hope this article helped you to get an idea of what to do when your app gets stuck in “Waiting for Review”. And all the best with your app submission! May the App Store Review Gods be with you!
Cheers!