Apple says that it offers expedited review for urgent circumstances, such as fixing a critical bug in your current app or releasing an app for an event you are directly associated with. These are the types of situations Apple identifies as appropriate for expedited review requests.
When expedited review is actually take into consideration?
But In my experience, an accepted expedited review request does not always move the app forward. I have seen apps sit in Waiting for Review for a week even after requesting expedited review, while other apps submitted around the same time contined through the normal review process without it. So the practical takeaway is simple: expedited review is worth trying when your case is urgent, but you should not treat it as a guarantee that Apple will actually consider the request.
The timing of the request may also matter. In my experience, submitting an expedited review request right after you submit the app to review, while it is still in Waiting for Review, can have a better chance of helping than waiting several days and then trying to expedite a submission that is already known to be "stuck". If the app has been sitting in Waiting for Review for a few days, you can still send the request, but I never saw a pattern where it would change the status to "In Review" faster.
How do you know if expedited review on the App Store was acutally considered?
You can't know. But a practical sign that your expedited review request was considered is when the app moves from Waiting for Review to In Review shortly after you submit the request. In many cases, that can happen within minutes or a few hours. If the app remains in Waiting for Review for days after the request, it is a good sign that expedited review did not meaningfully change the review timeline and your app was put into different queue than other apps (for a different reason).
How to expedite the review?
You can expedite the review here. But you need to make sure that the status of your app is "Waiting for Review" first.
