Roblox Publishing Requirements Explained (October 2026): Tiers, the 250 HEP Evaluation, and the All Ages Fee

Thu Oct 22, 2026 1:13 am

Quick Summary

Roblox split publishing into three tiers. Personal use is still free, 16+ and Trusted Friends needs an age check, and All Ages (which includes Roblox Kids and Roblox Select) needs the lot. Roblox Support
The All Ages tier asks for an age check, ID or facial age estimation, 2-factor authentication, a fee or a subscription, a content rating, and a passing evaluation. Creator Hub docs
The fee path is a one-time refundable 1,000 Robux publishing fee, or a 50,000 Robux expedited review fee that skips the wait. The subscription path is Roblox Plus or Premium held for 2 consecutive months. Publishing fee docs
The evaluation needs 250 unique plays from highly engaged age-checked players inside a 60-day window, with the metric refreshed hourly. Evaluation process
The entry bar has been cut three times in two months, from 500 highly engaged players down to 250, and the maintenance bar down from 100 to 25. DevForum
The single biggest change in October is the guided flow. A game with no age-restricted content answers one question, gets a Content May Vary rating, and goes live to 16+ in most regions. Simpler publishing path

Where the rules came from

This did not appear out of nowhere. The first gate landed on December 17, 2025, when Roblox required ID verification or a real-money purchase since January 1 of that year to publish or update a public experience. New requirements to publish and update public experiences That thread is at 229k views, and the top replies are blunt. "address the elephant in the room (moderation not moderating correctly) first" is the one most people agreed with. Someone else called it a cash grab in the same thread, and there is a running joke in there about a founder selling shares before the chain of bad decisions started.

Roblox framed that first round as a friction against brute force, and the argument carried over into the bigger announcement on April 13, 2026, which added Roblox Kids and Roblox Select accounts, a recurring subscription requirement, and a per-game evaluation process. New Publishing Requirements and Evaluation Process That thread sits at 265k views and 4,349 replies. It is one of the largest creator threads on the platform this year.

The three tiers, spelled out

The requirements scale with who you want to reach. Here is the table from the official support article, which is the clearest summary of the split. How to Publish Games on Roblox

Tier	Who can play	What you need
Personal Use	Anyone with edit permissions	Nothing. Available to all Roblox accounts in good standing.
Trusted Friends and 16+	Trusted Friends and age-checked users 16 or older	An age check, an account in good standing, and one question about age-restricted content. Answer no and the game gets a Content May Vary rating.
All ages	Everyone, including Roblox Kids (ages 5-8) and Roblox Select (ages 9-15)	Everything above, plus ID or facial age estimation, 2-factor authentication, a fee or a subscription, a full Maturity and Compliance questionnaire, and a passing evaluation.

Two details in that table matter more than they look. First, a Content May Vary rating is not a normal rating. It is the label you get for answering one question, and it blocks you from publishing age-restricted content, reaching anyone under 16, running ads, and releasing in regions that require the full questionnaire. Maturity ratings Second, the one-question path only gets you to 16+ in most regions, not all of them. If you want the full list, you still have to complete the questionnaire.

The fee and subscription options

If you do not have a Roblox Plus or Premium subscription held for 2 consecutive months, you can pay instead. Roblox offers two fee paths, and they are not the same thing. Optional fees

The publishing fee is 1,000 Robux per game, one-time and refundable. It gets your game to all ages and does not buy you speed. The refund lands if your game holds 25 highly engaged players for 60 days without moderation.
The expedited review fee is 50,000 Robux per game, one-time and refundable. It accelerates the safety and compliance reviews. The refund is available after 90 days as long as the game holds 25 highly engaged players.
The subscription path is an active Roblox Plus or Premium subscription for 2 consecutive months. Roblox Plus launched at $4.99 USD per month on April 30, 2026. Introducing Roblox Plus
Lifetime Premium members keep meeting the requirement. They are not converted to Plus, and they do not need to switch. Publishing requirements AMA

That 50,000 Robux figure was 100,000 until Roblox cut it roughly in half on September 13, 2026. Roblox cuts cost of expedited all-ages review Forum threads from August show creators pushing for exactly that cut, arguing that halving the threshold while leaving the fee alone made no sense.

What the evaluation actually measures

The evaluation is the part that catches people off guard, because it is not a review you request. It runs on engagement. The sequence is:

The game goes live to age-checked users 16 and older first.
Roblox watches account age, play history, and platform spend to work out whether the engagement is real and not bot driven.
Real-time moderation reports and gameplay get reviewed for age suitability.
The game completes evaluation once it records 250 unique plays from highly engaged age-checked players inside a 60-day window. Evaluation process

A highly engaged player is not just anyone who joins. The current definition uses account tenure, playtime in your game, and platform spend. The spend part means the player made at least one purchase anywhere on Roblox in the last 60 days and spent time in your game in the same window. They do not need to spend anything inside your game, which matters for free to play titles. What is a highly engaged player

The metric updates hourly now. It used to refresh once a day, and Roblox says a game that suddenly takes off can begin promotion into Kids and Select within a few hours rather than a day or two. Track highly engaged player progress

Why the thresholds keep moving

The numbers changed fast, and the direction is consistently downward. This is the third eligibility change to Kids and Select in two months, according to the DevForum post that announced the last cut. Highly Engaged Player Threshold Drops to 250

July 6, 2026: Roblox relaxed the definition of a highly engaged player. It said new games entering the catalog rose 33% as a result.
July 16, 2026: The maintenance bar dropped from 100 to 25 highly engaged players, so qualifying games stay in the catalog longer.
August 19, 2026: The entry threshold halved from 500 to 250.
November 2026: The Highly Engaged Player threshold drops again, from 250 to 100. Simpler publishing path

Read that as a company backing down in stages. The April announcement was the high-water mark. Every adjustment since has loosened the gate.

How to check your own status

Open Account Settings on Creator Hub and go to Eligibility. The page shows exactly which steps you still need. Check your status
Select your game and open the Audience Reach tab to see your highly engaged player count against the current threshold. The progress is identical in Studio.
Read the guided flow top to bottom before you commit. It flags the expansion steps you are missing.
If you are close to falling below the maintenance bar, the dashboard warns you before you drop out of the catalog.

Early testers are worth setting up before you go public. You can invite up to 10 friends or group members to preview the game, it costs nothing, and the same age check requirement applies. It does not replace the questionnaire or the Kids and Select requirements, so it is a testing tool rather than a shortcut. Early testing

FAQ

Do I need Roblox Plus to publish a game?
No. Plus is only required for the All Ages tier. You can publish and update games for the 16+ audience with nothing more than a completed age check. Roblox confirmed this twice in the AMA and in the support article. Publishing requirements AMA

If my Plus subscription runs out, does my game get taken down?
No, it stays published and available to all ages. You only need to resubscribe when you want to update the game or publish a new one to that audience. The same rule covers the fee path.

What happens if my game fails the evaluation?
There is no appeal if you are under the highly engaged player threshold, because Roblox does not have enough data to judge the game. If you pass the threshold but fail on a possible Community Standards violation or a misread questionnaire, you get notified in Creator Hub and can appeal. A successful appeal makes the game available to Kids and Select accounts.

Does updating a game restart the evaluation?
No. The screening does not restart, but every game has to keep enough highly engaged players to stay in the catalog. That is what the maintenance bar is for.

Can I pay with Robux instead of a subscription?
That is the 1,000 Robux publishing fee or the 50,000 Robux expedited review fee. Both are one-time and refundable. Roblox has said it is exploring monthly Robux payments for publishing eligibility, but as of the May AMA there were no plans for Plus itself to be purchasable with Robux. Roblox Plus questions

What happens to games owned by a group?
Only the group owner needs the Plus subscription. Contributors can still edit and publish, but they must have 2-factor authentication enabled. The six-month Plus grant goes to the group owner too. Group requirements

Where this leaves creators

The April announcement read like a hard line. Six months later the gate is noticeably lower, the fee is half what it was, and the fastest way to reach all ages is still to get 250 real players aged 16 and up to stick around. The safety argument has not changed. The numbers around it keep moving.

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