Apple has announced that submissions for the Swift Student Challenge 2027 will open on February 8 and close on February 28. Students can build apps for any Apple platform, and the maximum ZIP file size for submissions has increased from 25 MB to 500 MB.
Students can enter if they are at least 13 in most countries, are not employed full time as a developer and meet Apple’s eligibility requirements for school enrollment. The sections below cover what changed from 2026, the rules that stay the same and how Apple helps students prepare.
Swift Student Challenge 2027 Changes
Your app can now run on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, tvOS or watchOS. The 2026 round asked for an app playground in the .swiftpm format.
You can now submit either an Xcode app or an app playground built with Swift Playground, packed in a ZIP file of up to 500 MB. Command line tools and packages are not eligible.
You build and run the app with Xcode 27 or Swift Playground 4.7, or later. The 2026 round asked for Xcode 26 or Swift Playground 4.6 or later.
Rules That Stay the Same
Your app still has to be experienced within three minutes, and it cannot rely on a network connection. Apple judges every submission offline, so all resources have to ship inside the ZIP file. Content has to be in English, the work has to be your own as an individual, and open source code or public domain images and sounds need a credit and an explanation.
The minimum age is 13 in most countries. It rises to 14 in places such as Italy, Spain and South Korea, to 15 in France, Greece and Czechia, and to 16 in Brazil, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, among others. You must meet your country’s minimum age on the day you submit.
You also need a free Apple developer registration or an Apple Developer Program membership. On the school side, you qualify if you are enrolled at an accredited school, an official homeschool equivalent or an Apple Developer Academy, or graduated from one within the last 90 days. Students in a STEM organization’s curriculum qualify too, as do high school graduates from the past six months who are waiting on or have received a college acceptance.
Prep Sessions and Prizes
Apple is running three free online Meet with Apple sessions for students and beginners. The first one, Get started with agentic coding, is on December 10. Get ready for the Swift Student Challenge follows on January 14, and Create your app’s story is on February 4.
Apple’s Develop in Swift tutorials cover SwiftUI, AI and machine learning, and spatial computing. Questions about the challenge go to the Apple Developer Forums with the Swift Student Challenge tag.
Winners are chosen for innovation, creativity, social impact or inclusivity. Every winner gets one year of Apple Developer Program membership and a special gift, and Distinguished Winners are invited to an experience at Apple in Cupertino. You can win an award up to three times, but you can be a Distinguished Winner only once.
Apple has not said when it will notify the 2027 winners. It notified the 2026 winners on March 26.
