Cannot create Apple Podcast Connect Account

For anyone else who has been dealing with this but has already confirmed that your apple account is valid (i.e. has a payment method, etc.), but still cannot create an account through Apple Podcasts Connect, I spent several hours on the phone with support the other day to discover this:

Apple Developer Accounts cannot currently be used to create a Podcast account. If your apple ID is a Developer Account, Apple currently has no fix available. The solution is to create a new AppleID solely for the purpose of podcasting and use that one.

Note that the process of creating a secondary apple id is a giant pain. You'll need a non-apple email address because you can't create apple ids through the website (appleid.apple.com) with any email address ending in `icloud.com`. After creating the account, you'll need to "activate" it by logging into it on an apple device (maybe through a guest account on your laptop) and then add a valid payment method. After all of this, you'll be able to head back to Podcasts Connect and create your account with the new Apple ID.

Also note that if you're experiencing this problem, you won't be able to get support through any of the listed channels because they all involve logging in through Podcasts Connect, which is the very thing you can't do. So finding a way to get help required calling the number here https://gethuman.com/phone-number/Apple and explaining the issue to an ever-escalating series of specialists who don't know the domain.

This is needlessly complicated and orders of magnitude more difficult than publishing podcasts to literally any other platform. I hope Apple manages to fix the issue before long, but until then, I hope this is helpful.

This has been a problem for many people: indeed almost every post from people who are creating podcasts is about this rather than issue with their own podcast. As it's internal to Apple I can only offer the following standard advice, which may or may not help; probably it won't but there really isn't anything else I can suggest.

You must have a payment method registered in Apple Music/iTunes: make sure your computer is authorised to play purchases (Apple Music or iTunes menu Account>Authorisations>Authorise this Computer). Then try logging in at https://podcastsconnect.apple.com

For help with the process of creating a podcasting account please see Create Apple Podcasts Connect account - Apple Podcasts for Creators

If this fails I would suggest reporting it Podcasts Support: https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/contact-us , though if you haven't been able to complete the submission you may not be able to access them: in which case the next step is to contact Apple Support: Support

Don't present this as a podcasting problem - they don't handle those and will refer you to Podcasts Support. Present the problem as being the inability to access Podcasts Support. It's also been suggested that getting them to look at your Apple ID may clear matters: do you have a Developer ID? Someone else found that his didn't work and when he created a normal ID it worked.

You may also find Robert Walch's post here useful: can't add my podcast to podcast connect -… - Apple Community

Thank you for a useful answer. I'll add a link to it in my boilerplate answer to this frequent question.