If you’re a .NET MAUI developer publishing apps to Google Play, there’s an important requirement coming your way. Starting November 1st, 2025, Google Play will require all new apps and updates targeting Android 15+ to support 16 KB page sizes on 64-bit devices.
What is the 16 KB Page Size Requirement?
Android is moving from 4 KB to 16 KB memory page sizes to optimize performance on devices with larger amounts of RAM. This change brings several system-wide benefits that Google has measured, but also advantages for the app you are building on Android:
- Lower app launch times (3.16% improvement on average, up to 30% for some apps)
- Reduced power draw during app launch (4.56% reduction on average)
- Improved system performance better overall system responsiveness on the Android operating system, for instance the Android camera app has 4.48% faster hot starts, 6.60% faster cold starts
.NET MAUI Support
The good news is that .NET MAUI 9 supports 16 KB page sizes out of the box, so make sure that your .NET MAUI (and .NET for Android) app is on .NET 9 and your app should automatically be compatible with the 16 KB page size requirement.
Please note, .NET MAUI 8 is out of support as of May 14, 2025 per the .NET MAUI support policy.
Check your dependencies
All dependencies in your .NET MAUI project also need 16 KB support. When building your app, you’ll see warnings for non-compliant dependencies:
Android 16 will require 16 KB page sizes, shared library '{library_name}' does not have a 16 KB page size. Please inform the authors of the NuGet package '{package_name}' version '{version}' which contains '{file_path}'. See https://developer.android.com/guide/practices/page-sizes for more details.When you see this warning:
- Update the dependency to a newer version that supports 16 KB page sizes
- Contact the package author if no updated version is available
- Find an alternative dependency if the package is no longer maintained
If you want to do some additional manual checks to make sure that your app and it’s dependencies are compliant, check the Google documentation which offers some command-line scripts that can help with that.
What you need to do
Here’s your action plan for the November 2025 deadline:
- Upgrade to .NET 9 if you haven’t already
- Check your dependencies for 16 KB compatibility
- Update or replace any non-compliant dependencies
- Test your app in a 16 KB environment using Android emulators or using the developer options on your Android device
Important
Don’t wait until the November deadline. Start preparing now to ensure your app submissions meet Google Play policy requirements and you can continue to release without interruption.Summary
The 16 KB page size requirement brings performance benefits but requires preparation. With .NET MAUI 9, the framework is ready – you just need to ensure your dependencies are too. Upgrade to .NET 9, audit your dependencies, and test in 16 KB environments to be prepared for the November 2025 deadline.
Hi, what about Xamarin.Android apps targeting Android 15 , built in VS2022 Version 17.13, and that are not yet upgraded to .NET MAUI
I can’t – so far – find any articles on upgrading Xamarin.Android projects to use 16K page size. (possibly because we are supposed to have already upgraded to NET MAUI !! )
Can you help?.
Thanks
I’m afraid I won’t be able to help with that. Xamarin is out of support since May 2024 and as such there have been no updates on our side to make this work with 16KB page sizes. You do not necessarily have to make it a .NET MAUI app, but you do need to update your app to .NET 9. More information on that can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/maui/migration/native-projects?view=net-maui-9.0
As stated by Nord, we also are using .NET 9 in our app, there are no warnings about 16 kB dependencies in the build log, but Google still complains: “Your latest production release does not support 16 KB memory page sizes.” We don’t use Android Studio, so I can’t run those checks. I ran the Powershell zipAlign script and it reported “Verification Successful” for all of my .so files. How can I convince Google that my app complies?
For my personal app I have seen the same thing and it took a few days before the Google Play Store picked up on my updated app and it let me know all was good. Seeing that this comment is now 4 days old I would expect that to have happened by now. If not and you are still not sure please reach out to me directly (find my email on my GitHub profile page) and let's see if we can figure it out.
While you might not have Android Studio now nor any need for it, it should be easy...
We are using .NET 9 in our app, there are no warnings about 16 kB dependencies in the build log, but Google still complains: “Your latest production release does not support 16 KB memory page sizes.”.
There must be some library that isn’t compatible yet then. You can use the instructions in the post to find out which one or you can load up your apk file in the Android Studio and you should see an exclamation mark on what is not compatible yet.
Yes, I did that too. No warnings in Android Studio either.
I guess there’s a bug in Google Play Store. 🤷🏻♂️
How to ensure that my app supports 16kb pages?
Does it is enough to ensure, that my app is supporting .Net 9 + All packages as well?
I think that should typically be enough. You will get a build warning and/or warning from the Google Play Store if something is not right. If you don’t get any of that, you are all good 🙂