Apple restores card payments for India App Store and subscriptions

Apple has begun restoring card payments for Apple Account purchases in India, reopening App Store and subscription billing to eligible Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards after a gap of more than four years. The change is rolling out in phases and again lets customers add cards to an Apple Account for services such as iCloud+ and Apple Music, along with app purchases.

Apple suspended card payments in India in May 2022 after changes to the country’s recurring-payments framework disrupted its old billing model. Customers can buy apps from the App Store, subscribe to Apple services such as iCloud+ and Apple Music, or buy other media with an Apple Account and a valid payment method. Indian government regulations require additional steps to complete purchases and begin subscriptions.

Those rules trace back to the Reserve Bank of India’s card-tokenisation overhaul. The central bank announced the framework on September 7, 2021, and by January 1, 2022, no entity in the card payment chain other than card issuers and card networks could store card-on-file data, with any existing data to be purged. The RBI later extended the deadline for storing card-on-file data to June 30, 2022 before requiring purging. Token requestors cannot store card numbers or other card details; tokenised card data is stored by the token service provider.

Apple has rebuilt its checkout and billing systems to fit those local rules rather than simply restoring the earlier payment flow. UPI Autopay remains available for subscriptions, and customers can also add funds to their Apple Account balance.

Apple.com accepts cards issued in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States for purchases on its store site, separate from Apple Account billing.