Apple cider (also called sweet cider, soft cider, or simply cider) is the name used in the United States and Canada for an unfiltered, unsweetened, non-alcoholic beverage made from apples. Though typically referred to simply as "cider" in North America, it is not to be confused with the alcoholic beverage known as cider in the rest of the world, which is called "hard cider" in the US. Outside of the United States and Canada, it is commonly referred to as cloudy apple juice to distinguish it from clearer, filtered apple juice and hard cider.

Fresh liquid cider is extracted from the whole apple, including the apple core, trimmings from apples, and oddly sized or shaped “imperfect” apples, or apple culls. Fresh cider is opaque due to fine apple particles in suspension and generally tangier than commercially cooked and filtered apple juice, but this depends somewhat on the variety of apples used. Cider is sometimes pasteurized or exposed to UV light to kill bacteria and extend its shelf life, but traditional raw untreated cider is still common. Some companies have begun adding preservatives and boiling cider, so that it can be shelf stable and stored without refrigeration. In either form, apple cider is seasonally produced in autumn. It is traditionally served on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve, sometimes heated and mulled.

Although the term "cider" is used for the fermented alcoholic drink in much of the world, it often refers to fresh "apple cider" in North America; hard cider is used there instead when referring to the alcoholic drink. In much of the U.S. and Canada, the fresh variety is often referred to as "apple cider" with "cider" alone referring to the alcoholic variety.^{[citation needed]}

While some states specify a difference between apple juice and cider, the distinction is not well established across the U.S. Massachusetts makes an attempt to at least differentiate fresh raw cider and processed, cooked apple juice; according to its Department of Agricultural Resources,

apple juice and apple cider are both fruit beverages made from apples, but there is a difference between the two. Fresh cider is raw apple juice that has not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particles of pulp or sediment. Apple juice is juice that has been cooked and filtered to remove solids, and pasteurized so that it will stay fresh longer. Vacuum sealing and additional filtering extend the shelf life of apple juice.

This still leaves unfiltered apple juice that is no longer raw in a gray area, presumably cider but not labeled as such. The addition of sweeteners or reconstitution from concentrate are left even grayer.^{[citation needed]}

Canada recognizes unfiltered, unsweetened apple juice as cider, fresh or not.

Historically all cider was left in its natural state, raw and unprocessed. In time, airborne yeasts present on apple skins or cider making machinery would start fermentation in the finished cider. Left on its own, alcohol would develop and forestall growth of harmful bacteria. When modern refrigeration emerged, cider and other fruit juices could be kept cold or frozen for long periods of time, slowing down fermentation. Any interruption of the refrigeration, however, could allow bacterial contamination to grow. Outbreaks of illness resulted in some state government regulations requiring any commercially produced cider to be treated either with heat or UV radiation.^{[citation needed]}