Apple has opened the application process for the Swift Student Challenge 2026, with a deadline of February 28. The competition challenges youngsters aged 13 and up to conceptualise, design, and bring about an app that addresses critical community issues. Participants use Apple’s resources and technologies to push their development efforts. Each year, selected winners are invited to Apple’s offices in Cupertino for a three-day event to celebrate their accomplishments and demonstrate inventiveness in app creation.
In a recent statement, the business detailed the minimal eligibility requirements for the Swift Student Challenge 2026. Participants must not be full-time developers and must meet the minimum age limit, which is 13 years or older in India and the United States and 14 years in China, Israel, South Korea, and some European countries. Other regions will follow their own jurisdictions.
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Apple will recognise 350 Swift Student Challenge winners for their outstanding contributions to innovation, creativity, social impact, and diversity. Among them, 50 Distinguished Winners will be invited to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters for three days of inspiration. All winners will receive a one-year membership to the Apple Developer Program as well as a special gift from Apple.
The company said, “We wanted to share that applications for the Swift Student Challenge are now open! The Challenge, which will be open through the end of February, has given thousands of student developers the opportunity to showcase their creativity, coding capabilities, and learn skills that they can take into their careers and beyond.”
To be eligible for the Challenge, applicants must not work full-time as developers and must meet age limits unique to their country or region. The minimum age is 14 in Austria, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, South Korea, and Spain; 15 in Czechia, France, Greece, Peru, and Slovenia; 16 in Brazil, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Singapore, and Slovakia; and 13 in all other regions.
In addition, applicants must have free Apple developer registrations or be Apple Developer Program members. They must also meet one of the following requirements: be enrolled in or have graduated from an accredited academic institution or official homeschool within the last 90 days; be enrolled in a STEM organisation’s educational curriculum; or have graduated from high school or equivalent within the past 6 months while awaiting or having received acceptance to an accredited academic institution. Awards for the Swift Student Challenge can be received up to three times, but being named a Distinguished Winner is only allowed once.
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Students are encouraged to use educational resources like Swift Playground and Xcode 26 to improve their coding skills. To fulfil an assignment, students must design an app playground that can be explored in three minutes. The following conditions must be met: submissions must take the form of a SwiftPM file compressed into a ZIP file of no more than 25 MB, and all resources utilised must be included locally within this ZIP file owing to offline judging criteria. Each contribution must be the original work of one student or a modified template developed by one person; joint projects will not be approved. The usage of third-party open-source licensed code and public domain assets is permitted as long as due credit and explanations are provided. The playground must be compatible with Swift Playground 4.6 or Xcode 26 and can use Apple Pencil.
