I have been steady researching this and I have stumbbled upon what lloks like an unfinshed doc for the Developer Verification Program

Key notes

• still no rollout schedule
• Fee can be found in FAQ. Says it will be $25
• That you will have to provide a state-issued ID even for the now free "Limited Distribution" that has a 20 device maximum
• In the FAQ it shows that this is covering all devices Android 7.0 and up and admits that the Advanced Flow in Google Play Services.
• still does not address how they are justifying this at all

They have stolen a free product and are now activity locking out the people who built it.

ASOP does not belong to them it belongs to us. Time to get it back I think.

If you haven't seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.

This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the "advanced flow", exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.

The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:

• Read the full breakdown of what this means
• Sign the open letter (organisations only)
• Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
• Add the countdown banner to your project

September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.