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During the Apple Developer Program enrollment you have to enter the "Legal Entity Name" of your company. It should "Include the entity type, such as Inc., LLC, GmbH, etc.", but I can't enter the legal entity name correctly, since it contains the special character "ä" (which is not supported in the input filed). This is a typical letter in german entity names, because of the common entity type "UG (haftungsbeschränkt)", which means something like "entrepreneurial company (limited liability)".

I wouldn't mind and just enter "CompanyXY UG", but the problem is, that you have to enter the "D-U-N-S® Number" on the same page. When submitting the form, apple checks if the entered legal entity name is equal to the entity name which is deposited at D&B at the entered D-U-N-S® Number. The deposited name is the real legal entity name "CompanyXY UG (haftungsbeschränkt)". So... I think this means it is impossible that the entered name and the deposited name will ever be equal. Thus I can't create an Apple Developer Account for this company, which I can't imagine.

I appreciate any advise! I would guess many german companies (UG's) would face this same issue.

Similar question but no solution: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2675743 (10 Years ago!)

Vega180
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    Ich würde den Apple Developer Support kontaktieren (I would get in touch with the Apple Developer Support). – vadian Feb 17 '21 at 17:47
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    Just try filling it out with either "haftungsbeschrankt" or "haftungsbeschraenkt" - maybe contact apple support (directly or afterwards). – luk2302 Feb 17 '21 at 17:48
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    I’m voting to close this question because it is not about programming. Ask Apple – Paulw11 Feb 17 '21 at 19:29
  • @luk2302 Thanks a lot! The first of your Ideas just worked! I tried many variations earlier, but forgot the simple "a". – Vega180 Feb 17 '21 at 20:17
  • @Paulw11 Yes, it is not about programming in general, but it will be of interest for future Apple developers and I was hoping for a solution from experienced Apple developers. So it's a question from developers to developers. If that's not enough, than I'm sorry. – Vega180 Feb 17 '21 at 20:20

2 Answers2

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I replaced the special character ä with a and it did work. (Thanks to luk2302's comment.)

Previously I tried to replace it with ae, ä, ä and , but all of this variations didn't work - and I forgot to test a simple a...

Vega180
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  • I have an issue with the double quotes character. Do you know what character should be used instead of double quotes? – Bosko Popovic Aug 10 '21 at 00:10
  • @BoskoPopovic No idea, sorry. I hope you figured it out. If so, feel free to share it here :) – Vega180 Sep 15 '21 at 08:32
  • Yeah, I'm hitting this with "!" which doesn't have a nice fallback like "a". It's recognized everywhere else as a valid legal entity except for Apple; even have the DUNS number. What a brutal process. – manafire Jan 21 '22 at 22:23
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We had the problem with a special character in the company name (in our case an exclamation mark).

Contacting Apple Developer Support helps in this case: https://developer.apple.com/contact/#!/topic/select (chose topic "membership and account" and subtopic "registration").

Their support knows about this and just telling them the company name she knew what to do. They adjust things internally to allow one to continue the process on the website.

Capricorn
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