I have found a workaround for this problem by letting Xcode generate the Info.plist, then ignoring the CFBundleVersion key that it generates. I then ALSO supply a minimal explicit Info.plist file in Build Settings -> Packaging that only contains a single user defined MyBundleVersion key: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>MyBundleVersion</key> <string>68</string> </dict> </plist> Then I use PlistBuddy to increment MyBundleVersion instead of CFBundleVersion. and then reference the MyBundleVersion key in code: let myBundleVersion = Bundle.main.infoDictionary?["MyBundleVersion"] as? String