> Redesign [introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/1979) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.8 and [feature flag removed](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/10685) in 12.0.
You can configure your merge requests so that they must be approved before
they can be merged. You can do this by creating [rules](rules.md) or by specifying
a list of users who act as [code owners](../../code_owners.md) for specific files.
You can configure merge request approvals for each project. In higher GitLab tiers,
Administrators of self-managed GitLab instances can configure approvals
they can be merged. While [GitLab Free](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) allows
all users with Developer or greater [permissions](../../../permissions.md) to
approve merge requests, these approvals are [optional](#optional-approvals).
[GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) and
[GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) provide additional
flexibility:
- Create required [rules](rules.md) about the number and type of approvers before work can merge.
- Specify a list of users who act as [code owners](../../code_owners.md) for specific files,
and require their approval before work can merge.
You can configure merge request approvals on a per-project basis. Administrators of
[GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) and