First half of app transfer post

Author: JakeSteam

_drafts/2000-01-01-template.md

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-[![](/assets/images/2024/example-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2024/example.png)
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_drafts/2025-01-01-google-play-public-information.md

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+---
+title: How to verify your UK Google Play account... without publicly sharing ALL your information
+image: /assets/images/banners/
+tags:
+  - Google Play
+---
+
+In 2023, Google began requiring verification for Google Play, especially if earning money. Unfortunately, this required publicly exposing your **home address** and **phone number**. Here's how to earn money without revealing this info.
+
+Before we get started, **this will require setting up a company and a forwarding address**. Whilst there is a cost, in the UK neither of them are too tricky. I'd recommend [Rapid Formations](https://www.rapidformations.co.uk/) which offer this for around £67/yr, more on that later in "[Solution](#solution)".
+
+## Scenario
+
+In July 2023, Google announced [a controversial policy](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/07/boosting-trust-and-transparency-in-google-play.html) requiring all developers to verify this information. This sounded fairly innocent and easy, until [looking at the detailed requirements](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/14177239) for personal accounts. Specifically, if you're earning money:
+
+1. Your legal name
+2. Your phone number
+3. Your legal address
+
+Whilst I'm happy sharing my legal name (it's Jake Lee, could you tell?), my phone number and address are extremely private information! My phone number is both a way to contact me 24/7 and used for 2FA SMS in services that don't support app-based, whilst my address is... literally where my family and I live. This should not be public, ever.
+
+If you want to earn money, the only official options are:
+
+1. Reveal all your information publicly.
+2. Let Google close your account and remove all your apps.
+
+Luckily, there is a way to solve this in a Google- and privacy-friendly way by creating a new Google Play Console account. More details after information on my personal scenario!
+
+## Personal scenario
+
+I've been earning money on Google Play since 2016, and once upon a time it earned more than my (low!) salary, encouraging me to [become an Android developer](/7-lessons-from-a-decade-in-tech/#why-did-i-leave), a job I love.
+
+Whilst my apps no longer earn significant amounts (typically £10-20/month), it's still a nice bit of bonus money to fund other projects. Similarly, players are clearly still enjoying the apps, so the apps should stay available as long as possible!
+
+I did some work last year to get my old games running, conforming to Google Play's latest requirements, and sorting out any policy paperwork that needed solving. There was still the developer verification, but that wasn't required until 2025 so I left it. Now it's time to solve it!
+
+## Failed attempts
+
+Before solving the issue, I failed multiple times. I'll condense these multi-week stressful struggles into 2 summaries, and spare the details.
+
+### Attempt 1, Apr '24
+
+Since I already had a registered company with a forwarding address, I assumed I could use this as my personal address. However, proof of me as an _individual_ at this address was required, such as a utility bill. This was impossible (I don't live in an office!), and I went through multiple rounds of my company documents & personal documents being rejected.
+
+Throughout this, I was sent various intimidating emails about Google Services being suspended, and when combined with unhelpful slow & vague answers from Google Support, this was a pretty stressful experience.
+
+For example, my Google One (extra storage) subscription was expiring. My Google Pay had been suspended, so it was impossible to renew (with any payment method whatsoever, including Google Play credit). If I hadn't managed to resolve it in time, I would have had to deleted tens of GBs of photos / data to ensure my storage was within the free limit, otherwise I would have **lost the ability to receive emails**.
+
+Luckily, I managed to verify my personal address, and delay verification, allowing my payment profile to be unsuspended and pay for Google Pay. Problem not solved, but delayed.
+
+|                                               Failed payment                                                |                                              Consequences                                               |
+| :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
+| [![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-payment-declined-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-payment-declined.png) | [![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-payment-action-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-payment-action.png) |
+
+### Attempt 2, Dec '24
+
+I had some time over Christmas, so time to try again!
+
+Since verifying as an individual failed, using the lessons learned from hours of Reddit thread reading, I decided to create a Google Play Console account with a new Google account (the one used for my company) as an organisation. I started the process, entered my company details, and was immediately suspended due to the details not being verified.
+
+Specifically, I was told:
+
+> Because we've been unable to verify information for one or more users on your Google payments profile, your Google payments account has been suspended. Your Google services will continue temporarily, but some transactions may be suspended.
+>
+> **If action is not taken on this issue within 10 days, your Google services will be suspended.**
+
+No problem, it asks for a "Certificate of Incorporation" and I have that. I immediately submitted the files requested, a review time of 24-48 hours was mentioned, easily within the 10 day warning.
+
+And then I waited. And waited.
+
+Whilst waiting, I tried registering again, stating I _didn't_ want to earn money, to see if this made a difference. It did not.
+
+A week later, I received a 3-day warning, and nothing had changed. Well, it has been Christmas day, lots of holidays, so don't need to panic quite yet.
+
+Then I received my 1-day warning. I don't know what "Google services will be suspended" means, but it doesn't sound good. In fact, since this email address is paying for Google Workspace and controls all my `@jakelee.co.uk` emails, this sounds very bad indeed.
+
+Contacting support was, yet again, not particularly helpful. The agent couldn't directly review documents, but did at least confirm my emails would not stop working due to the suspension. Hopefully there's some sort of manual review required before a suspension, or they're paused when there's a large review backlog.
+
+Either way, the final 24 hours expired and... I didn't receive any updates, but my email still worked. Okay, panic slightly over. Later on I received a casual email that my documents had been verified and all was now OK. Right. What a lot of pointless stress.
+
+|                                     Emails received                                     |                                         1 day left                                          |                                     Pending cases                                     |
+| :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
+| [![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-emails-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-emails.png) | [![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-1dayleft-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-1dayleft.png) | [![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-cases-thumbnail.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-cases.png) |
+
+## Solution
+
+-- overview of steps to take --
+
+### Part 1: Making an account
+
+#### Setting up a company
+
+To earn money, you will need to share a legal address, this is absolutely required. However, if you're an organisation this can be your _office_ address, which can be done with a virtual office address, since the government accepts them.
+
+So, to set up a company without revealing your home address:
+
+1. Set up a company (I have [Jake Lee Ltd](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10660441)).
+2. Set up a forwarding address for your company (I pay [£39/yr](https://www.rapidformations.co.uk/additional-services/london-registered-office/)).
+3. Set up a forwarding address for your personal correspondence (I pay [£26/yr](https://www.rapidformations.co.uk/additional-services/service-address/)).
+4. Request your D-U-N-S number ([this is free](https://www.dnb.co.uk/duns-number/lookup/request-a-duns-number.html)).
+
+Rapid Formations [offer an all-in-one package](https://www.rapidformations.co.uk/package/privacy-package/) that seems to do pretty much everything (including business bank account, domain name, and more). I only began using a virtual office after establishing my company, so cannot personally vouch for this service, only confirm that the virtual office service has been perfect.
+
+Okay, so you now have a legal UK company with a legal address. That's the biggest hurdle overcome!
+
+#### Setting up contact details
+
+**Email**: Google requires a public-facing & Google-only email address. These can be the same, and don't have any specific requirements besides being able to verify them. I've had a Google Play specific email address for years and only receive spam once every few months.
+
+**Phone**: Similarly, Google will want a phone number to contact you, and a number for users to contact you. This is trickier, since you likely don't want to give away your phone number. Whilst there are various ways to pay for a virtual number, the easiest way is just to request a free SIM card (e.g. [from giffgaff](https://www.giffgaff.com/free-sim-cards)), pop it in your phone to verify, then take it out.
+
+This is a privacy trade-off (since a phone network now has your address), but I'm only concerned about _public_ sharing of this information so it's fine. I've changed networks enough that most of them know where I live!
+
+**Website**: You'll need some sort of public website, verified via Google Search Console. There aren't any specific requirements here.
+
+Finally, you'll have an email address, phone number, and website you can use.
+
+#### Setting up an organisation
+
+Next up, you need to create a Google Play Console organisation. Organisations have [a simpler verification process](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/play.google.com/en//console/about/static/pdf/Verifying_your_Play_Console_developer_account_for_organizations.pdf) (presumably since they rely on existing company verification), which we can use.
+
+This process is straightforward if you have [all the prerequisites](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/13628312?hl=en-GB), specifically:
+
+1. D-U-N-S number.
+2. Certificate of incorporation for your company (available on Companies House under Filing History).
+3. Contact information (phone, email, address).
+4. $25 to pay the registration fee.
+
+During this process, you will be asked to set up a payments profile.
+
+#### Setting up a payment profile
+
+Whilst setting up an organisation will appear to succeed, it will actually fail, causing the fee payment at the very end to be rejected. At this point you will need to submit your Certificate of Incorporation.
+
+Once you've submitted this, and it's been reviewed (this can take a while, see "[Attempt #2](#attempt-2-dec-24)"), the "Settings" tab of [your payment profile](https://pay.google.com/gp/w/home/settings) will finally show as verified:
+
+[![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-verified.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-verified.png)
+
+#### Putting it all together
+
+Once your payment profile has been verified, and you have no outstanding alerts, you will need to register for a Google Play Console account _again_, select this payment profile, and attempt the fee payment again.
+
+This time, it should succeed, and you'll finally have an Google Play Console organisation account!
+
+Of course, as soon as you open it you'll be told you need to verify it. Well, that's fine, we have our Certificate of Incorporation and other information from the payment profile. This only took a day or so for me, and didn't require any new information.
+
+#### Tidying up
+
+There are various settings here you'll likely want to fix. For example:
+
+1. You'll need to verify and link a bank account (Settings -> Payments profile).
+2. You'll need to check your public information (email, description etc) are correct.
+3. You'll need to add a developer profile picture, and banner.
+
+Once these changes and verifications have all gone through, you'll have a _verified_ Google Play Console organisation account! Phew, we're getting closer.
+
+### Part 2: Transferring apps
+
+- Transfer Firebase? Google Play Games?
+
+[![](/assets/images/2025/gpc-warning.png)](/assets/images/2025/gpc-warning.png)