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by mfDjB 1984 days ago
As an extension developer, I am keen to put my extension on Safari however what is preventing me at this moment is dealing with Dun & Bradstreet to get a DUNS number. A DUNS number is required to sign up to the Apple Developer Program as a corporation. So far I have been pushed to 3 different departments by D&B who keep just hand-balling me to the next department without solving my issue, and this is taking on the order of months. I wish Apple would remove this requirement.
7 comments

If you haven't reapplied lately, you may want to try again. My corp was just approved for the developer program without having to deal with D&B directly, just a phone call with someone from Apple. I think they simplified the enrolment process.
I got mine through Apple's page. It took a day or two to clear. No fuss.
Same. I filled in Apples form. D&B called me back to verify some details. Took two or three days. Apple swallows the cost.
a D&B # was required in the 90's to get most commercial SSL certs. if we wonder why SSL took so long, we can look at this long before we can look at what it took for let's encrypt to break into the market.
The key to D&B is understanding that they have two very separate businesses. Think of it like the TurboTax free filing division and the paid division.

D&B make buckets of money off of paid services which are like credit counseling and business reputation rackets. If you want to borrow money as a business you’ll probably have to pay their tax along the way.

Their quasi government mandated monopoly is handing out the number you need. God forbid you try to get one from the former however. Also don’t try to update your registration through the paid side either. They’ll try to charge you even though they can’t get it done any faster than you can yourself through the correct link.

The key to getting one quickly is making sure your corporate registration is updated with your state. And the officer getting the Apple ID is listed with the state as an officer.

I would normally suggest being a bit concurrent - contacting Apple and seeing if you could sign up as an individual and then migrate the registration to a corporate registration.

However, if you have had months of issues getting a DUNS number you likely are beyond wanting to move around a temporary roadblock, and on to trying to remove a more permanent roadblock first.

Getting a DUNS number for my LLC was free and not difficult, but it was confusing. There are a lot of wrong ways to try to go into the process - to the point where the DUNS sign up now has "Apple Developer" as one of the reasons you are asking for a number.

I came here to say this exact thing. It took me literally a month just to sign up for the Apple developer program, mostly due to the DUNS nonsense. It makes no sense, and is a huge pain.
This is ridiculous.