Ask to Buy Requests Not Coming Through? 7 Fixes

Your child taps Ask, waits, and nothing reaches your phone. Then they ask you in person and you find you approved nothing, because you were never asked. I know how frustrating that is when the whole point was to keep control, so here are the causes worth checking, in order.

One of them is not on Apple's list at all, and it is the one that fixed it for the owner whose thread this page draws on.

1. Check your payment method has not expired

Start here. It is invisible, it is not on Apple's troubleshooting page, and it is a confirmed fix.

One owner's Ask to Buy notifications had stopped entirely. They worked through restarts and updates with no result, then found the real cause on their own account.

Owners report what Apple's list does not. Their words: "realised that my credit card had expired under 'payment and delivery' on my device. Once I updated the payment details and waiting about an hour…the notifications started working."

Note the detail that makes it hard to spot. Their child was downloading free apps. A payment problem never occurred to them.

Go to Settings, tap your name, then Payment & Shipping. Check the card on file is current. Then wait an hour before you judge it, as they did.

If you also see a billing message when you try to buy anything, a billing problem with a previous purchase is the page for that, and it blocks free downloads in the same way.

2. Confirm Purchase Sharing is on

Second, and where Apple starts, because Ask to Buy rides on top of it.

Apple's route, on its Ask to Buy page: "Open the Settings app. Tap Family. If you're the family organizer, make sure that Purchase Sharing is turned on. Then you can tap a family member's name to see if Ask to Buy is turned on."

Two switches, and both have to be right. Purchase Sharing for the group. Then Ask to Buy for that individual child.

Turn Purchase Sharing off and Ask to Buy has nothing to attach itself to. That is why a request can vanish with no error anywhere.

3. Give the two devices different names

Narrower and genuinely strange, and Apple documents it in one line nobody quotes.

Apple: "Make sure that your device and your child's device have different names. To change the name of a device, open the Settings app, tap General, tap About, then tap your name."

Two phones both called iPhone is common in a family. It happens most after somebody restores from a backup.

So check both at Settings, General, About, Name, and make them different. It takes a minute, and it is the least obvious thing here.

4. Make sure a Focus is not swallowing the request

More specific, and it explains requests that arrive late or in batches.

Apple: "If Focus is turned on for your device, check the settings to make sure you can receive time-sensitive notifications like Ask to Buy requests. Or turn Focus off to see if that allows notifications to come through."

So an Ask to Buy request is a time-sensitive notification. Any Focus that blocks those blocks it.

Check the Focus you actually use. Go to Settings, Focus, tap it, and look at what it allows. Our page on a Focus blocking your calls covers the same trap from the other direction.

5. Check your child's contact card, because requests travel by Messages

Narrower again. This is a contacts problem as much as a settings one.

Apple: "Make sure that your child's contact card has the correct information, including their name and Apple Account email address or phone number. This will help make sure Ask to Buy notifications are sent and received through Messages."

Read that last part. The request reaches you through Messages.

So a contact card missing the Apple Account address, or holding an old one, gives the request nowhere to land.

Open Contacts, find your child, tap Edit. Check the email address and phone number match the Apple Account they actually use.

6. When the child sees Unable to Ask Permission

Different symptom, different cause. Worth naming, because the wording is specific.

Apple quotes the message and its cause: "Unable to Ask Permission. You can't ask permission, because you have signed in with iCloud and iTunes accounts that are not associated with each other."

So the child's phone is on one Apple Account for iCloud and a different one for purchases. The request cannot be attributed to a family member, so it never leaves.

Apple's answer is to check your Family Sharing settings and which Apple Account is signed in, and to make sure the store is using the same account as the family group.

Apple: "Make sure that you're signed in to the App Store, iTunes Store, Apple TV app, Apple Music app, or Apple Books using the same Apple Account that's associated with your Family Sharing group."

7. When the switch cannot be turned off at all

Last rung. It stops you hunting for a setting that is not yours to change.

Apple: "Depending on your child's age and country or region, Ask to Buy and app restrictions are turned on by default and can't be turned off or adjusted until they're 18 and can confirm that they're an adult."

So on a younger child's account the switch may be dimmed or absent by design. No amount of setting changes will move it.

That is worth knowing before you spend an evening on it. It works the other way too. If you expected to turn Ask to Buy off and cannot, this is why.

If purchases are the wider problem and family purchases are simply not appearing, Family Sharing purchases not showing is the page for that.

What does not help

• Restarting both phones. The owner in rung 1 tried that first and it changed nothing.
• Updating iOS. Also tried first on that thread, also no help, though it is worth being current anyway.
• Turning Ask to Buy off and on. It does not refresh an expired card or a duplicated device name.
• Asking the child to try a paid app instead. Free downloads use the same approval path, which is what disguises the payment cause.

Status: iOS 26.6.1, checked 19 August 2026. Apple documents six of these seven causes. The expired card in rung 1 is an owner finding and appears on no Apple page read for this article.

Why am I not getting Ask to Buy notifications?

Apple lists Focus settings, matching device names, the child's contact card and Family Sharing settings. On top of those, one owner traced their own case to an expired credit card on the organizer's account, which stopped notifications even for free apps.

Do Ask to Buy requests come through Messages?

Apple's guidance says the child's contact card needs the right name and Apple Account address so that notifications are sent and received through Messages, so keeping that card accurate matters more than it looks.

Why does my child see 'Unable to Ask Permission'?

Because their phone is signed into different Apple Accounts for iCloud and for purchases. Apple's answer is to check the Family Sharing settings and make sure the store is using the account attached to the family group.

Why can I not turn Ask to Buy off?

Because depending on the child's age and your country or region, Apple turns it on by default and it cannot be adjusted until they are 18 and confirm they are an adult.

The Short Version

• Check the organizer's payment method has not expired. It stops requests even for free apps.
• Purchase Sharing must be on for the group, and Ask to Buy on for that child.
• Give the two devices different names, which Apple asks for and nobody expects.
• A Focus that blocks time-sensitive notifications blocks Ask to Buy.
• Requests travel through Messages, so the child's contact card has to be right.
• Unable to Ask Permission means two different Apple Accounts on the child's phone.
• On a younger child's account the switch may be locked on by design.

Where to Next

Check the card before the settings. It costs a minute, it is invisible from the child's side, and it is the only cause here that Apple's own troubleshooting page misses.

If yours turns out to be something not on this list, please say so in a comment along with your child's age band, because Apple's behavior changes with age and region and that is the part hardest to research from outside.