Apple publishes a single Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Responsibility Standards document that sets out what every company in its manufacturing network must meet, and Apple says it enforces that code through assessments that review more than 500 criteria. Both facts come directly from Apple’s own supplier responsibility material.
The document sits alongside a separate Apple publication on preventing forced labor, and both connect to an annual report Apple now files under a different title than it used a decade ago.
Key facts
| Item | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| Document | Apple Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Responsibility Standards (PDF) |
| Areas covered | Labor and human rights, health and safety, environmental protections, management systems, ethics |
| Audit description | “Rigorous assessments,” reviewing “over 500 criteria” |
| Related document | “How we prevent forced labor in our supply chain” (PDF) |
| Supply chain hub | apple.com/supply-chain/ |
What the code covers
Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Responsibility Standards names five areas suppliers must meet: labor and human rights, health and safety, environmental protections, management systems, and ethics. Apple publishes the document as a single PDF rather than a separate policy for each area, and the same document applies across Apple’s supplier base regardless of what a given supplier builds, whether that is a component for iPhone 18 Pro and its A20 Pro chip, or for iPhone Duo.
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How Apple describes its own auditing
Apple’s own language is that it enforces the code by “conducting rigorous assessments, reviewing over 500 criteria.” Apple does not publish, in this document or elsewhere in its supply chain material, a breakdown of what those 500-plus criteria are, how they are weighted, or what score a supplier needs to pass. The number itself, not its composition, is the figure Apple has made public.
A separate document on forced labor
Apple treats forced labor as its own subject rather than a subsection of the main code. It publishes a standalone PDF titled “How we prevent forced labor in our supply chain,” hosted on the same supply chain site as the broader code. Apple has not published the contents of that document in any newsroom release, so its title and existence are what can be reported here.
One name change on the reporting side
The annual report that used to summarize this work was called the Supplier Responsibility Progress Report as recently as 2019, when Apple published its 13th annual edition. Apple’s supply chain material now calls the same body of work the “People and Environment in Our Supply Chain Progress Report.” Apple has not published an edition under that name in 2026 that appears in its own newsroom archive as of this writing.
Where the standards apply
The Code of Conduct is separate from Apple’s domestic manufacturing investment, including its American Manufacturing Program commitments and its new Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston. The code governs supplier conduct globally; the manufacturing program governs where Apple and its partners choose to build. Apple has not published language tying the two together directly, though both sit under the same company.
The three documents, side by side
| Document | What it is | Where Apple hosts it |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier Code of Conduct and Supplier Responsibility Standards | Sets labor, safety, environmental, management and ethics requirements | apple.com/supply-chain/ |
| How we prevent forced labor in our supply chain | Standalone document on forced labor prevention | apple.com/supply-chain/ |
| People and Environment in Our Supply Chain Progress Report | Annual account of supplier work, renamed from Supplier Responsibility Progress Report | Apple newsroom archive |
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published which of its 500-plus audit criteria suppliers fail most often, has not named a supplier that was suspended or removed from its supply chain for a violation, and has not published a scoring threshold for what counts as passing an assessment. Apple has also not published a 2026 edition of its renamed annual supply chain report, based on its own newsroom archive as of September 12, 2026.
Apple’s next software update, iOS 27, reaches devices built through this same supplier network on Monday, September 14, 2026. Whether Apple publishes an updated supply chain report before the end of the year has not been announced.
