Locale Character Limits Reference
App Store metadata character limits for every localization, in one reference table.
App Store field limits (identical in every localization)
| Field | Limit | Search indexed? |
|---|---|---|
| App name | 30 characters | Yes — strongest signal |
| Subtitle | 30 characters | Yes |
| Keywords field | 100 characters | Yes (hidden from users) |
| Promotional text | 170 characters | No |
| Description | 4,000 characters | No (Apple) / n/a |
Storefronts that index multiple localizations (examples)
| Storefront | Indexed localizations |
|---|---|
| United States | English (U.S.), Spanish (Mexico), Arabic, Russian, Chinese (Simplified) |
| United Kingdom | English (U.K.), English (Australia) |
| Germany | German, English (U.K.) |
| France | French, English (U.K.) |
| Japan | Japanese, English (U.S.) |
| South Korea | Korean, English (U.S.) |
| Turkey | Turkish, English (U.K.) |
| Brazil | Portuguese (Brazil), English (U.K.) |
| Canada | English (Canada), French (Canada) |
| Mexico | Spanish (Mexico), English (U.S.) |
ℹ︎ Cross-locale matching means a second indexed localization effectively doubles your keyword capacity in that storefront — e.g. Spanish (Mexico) keywords rank in the U.S.
ℹ︎ Character limits do not change per language, but information density does: CJK languages express far more meaning in 30 characters.
A question every team asks before its first localization project: do the App Store character limits change per language? The short answer is no — the app name is 30 characters, the subtitle 30, the keyword field 100, and the description 4,000 in every localization Apple supports. The table above lays this out per locale so there is no ambiguity.
The longer answer is that identical limits do not mean identical capacity. A 30-character Japanese or Chinese title carries far more meaning than a 30-character German one, and each localization brings its own fresh 100-character keyword field — which changes how you should budget metadata per market.
How to use the locale limits table
- 1
Find the locale you are localizing into in the table above.
- 2
Confirm the field limits — name 30, subtitle 30, keywords 100, description 4,000 — apply unchanged.
- 3
Note the effective-capacity guidance: CJK locales fit dense titles, while German and Finnish compound words eat space quickly.
- 4
Plan each localization’s keyword field separately — every locale gets its own 100 characters, so never copy one list across markets.
Same limits, very different effective capacity
Apple enforces the same grapheme-based limits everywhere: 30 characters for the app name, 30 for the subtitle, 100 for the keyword field, 4,000 for the description, and 170 for promotional text. What varies is information density. In Japanese, Chinese, and Korean a single character is often a full word or morpheme, so a 30-character CJK title can express what would take 60–80 Latin characters. Localizing into Japanese is effectively an upgrade in metadata capacity.
The opposite happens in languages with long compound words. German, Dutch, and the Nordic languages routinely produce single words of 15–20 characters — “Haushaltsbuch” alone consumes almost half a subtitle. When planning German metadata, expect to fit one strong keyword phrase where English fits two, and lean on the keyword field to carry the terms the visible fields cannot.
Every localization is a separate keyword budget
The most underused fact in App Store localization: the 100-character keyword field is per localization, not per app. An app localized into ten languages controls ten independent keyword fields. Even if your product only truly targets English speakers, additional localizations exist as extra indexable inventory — which is why sophisticated ASO teams populate locales like Spanish (Mexico) even for English-first apps.
That strategy works because Apple cross-matches certain localizations within a storefront. In the United States storefront, for instance, both the English (U.S.) and Spanish (Mexico) localizations are indexed for search — keywords placed in your es-MX keyword field can rank your app for searches made in the US. Similar pairings exist in other storefronts, effectively doubling the keyword space available in your most valuable markets.
Frequently asked questions
Are App Store character limits different in other languages?
No. The limits are identical in every localization: 30 characters for the app name, 30 for the subtitle, 100 for the keyword field, and 4,000 for the description. Apple counts user-perceived characters (graphemes), so the numbers hold for CJK scripts, Arabic, and emoji-containing text alike.
Does each localization get its own keyword field?
Yes — every localization has an independent 100-character keyword field, along with its own name, subtitle, description, and screenshots. Ten localizations means ten separate keyword fields you can fill with different terms.
What is cross-locale keyword matching?
Some storefronts index more than one localization for search. The best-known pairing is the US storefront, which reads both English (U.S.) and Spanish (Mexico) keyword fields — so es-MX keywords can rank an app in US searches. Exploiting these pairings roughly doubles your indexable keyword characters in the affected storefronts.
Why do Japanese titles seem to fit so much more?
Because a single kanji or Chinese character typically encodes a whole word, 30 CJK characters carry the semantic content of a much longer Latin-script phrase. The character limit is the same; the meaning-per-character is not. This makes CJK localizations unusually keyword-dense.
Should I copy my English keyword field into other locales?
No — that wastes the extra budget twice over. Literal copies target terms local users don’t search, and duplicated terms add no new ranking coverage. Research native search terms per locale (the Keyword Localization Helper does this) and fill each field with locale-specific terms instead.
Is promotional text also limited per localization?
Yes. Promotional text is capped at 170 characters per localization and, unlike the other fields, can be updated without submitting a new app version. It is not indexed for search, so use it for conversion messaging rather than keywords.
Fill every locale’s 160 characters — automatically
Appalize’s Cross-Localization ASO writes an optimized name, subtitle, and keyword field for each locale, budgets characters per language, and places keywords to exploit cross-locale matching pairs like en-US + es-MX.
Related free tools
App Name Character Counter
Check your App Store app name against the 30-character limit as you type.
Subtitle Character Counter
Validate your App Store subtitle against the 30-character limit in real time.
Keywords Field Counter (100 chars)
Fit the maximum keywords into Apple’s hidden 100-character field.
Keyword Localization Helper
Turn your keywords into the terms native users actually search — not literal translations.