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Apple’s effort to preserve its commission on purchases completed through external app-payment links failed in the short term. In May 2025, Apple asked the courts to pause key parts of a contempt and remedial order that barred it from charging its disputed fee and from restricting how developers presented outside-payment links. The Ninth Circuit denied that stay.
The broader dispute is still active. The Ninth Circuit later upheld the core contempt finding but sent the fee question back to the district court. As of August 16, 2026, the Supreme Court is reviewing a narrow question about when civil contempt may be based on an injunction’s “spirit,” while the district court separately considers whether Apple may charge a properly tailored, cost-based fee.
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The short version
- Apple’s external-link policy charged developers up to 27% on qualifying purchases made after users followed a link out of the U.S. App Store.
- Apple also limited link wording, placement and presentation, and used warnings that could add friction to external checkout.
- Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in civil contempt on April 30, 2025, concluding that the policy undermined the purpose of the anti-steering injunction.
- Apple’s emergency request to pause that order was denied by the Ninth Circuit in June 2025.
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the core contempt finding in December 2025 but left open a possible court-approved fee tied to Apple’s actual costs.
- The Supreme Court’s 2026 review concerns the legal standard for contempt—not whether Apple’s former 27% rate is automatically lawful.
What Apple was trying to delay
Apple was not initially asking to suspend the original 2021 injunction. Its May 2025 request targeted enforcement of Judge Rogers’s April 30, 2025 contempt and remedial order.
Apple wanted the courts to pause provisions that prevented it from:
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- charging a commission or fee on purchases completed through external links;
- imposing conditions on the wording, design or placement of those links; and
- using warning screens or similar measures that discouraged users from leaving Apple’s payment flow.
Apple argued that the original injunction did not clearly prohibit commissions on external purchases and that the later order expanded the injunction beyond its text. It also said immediate compliance would cause substantial financial and business harm while its appeal continued. TechCrunch reported on Apple’s May 2025 stay request.
How the dispute began
The case grew out of Epic Games’ 2020 decision to bypass Apple’s in-app payment system in Fortnite. Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, and Epic sued.
Judge Rogers’s 2021 judgment did not require Apple to abandon its App Store payment system. It imposed an anti-steering injunction: Apple could not prohibit developers from including buttons, external links or other calls to action directing customers to purchasing mechanisms outside Apple’s in-app purchase system.
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction in 2023, and the Supreme Court declined further review in 2024. The injunction took effect on January 16, 2024.
Apple’s 27% external-payment policy
Apple responded with a “Link Entitlement” framework. Developers could include qualifying external links, but Apple imposed conditions around their use and charged up to 27% on purchases completed after a user followed one.
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According to the Ninth Circuit’s account, Apple arrived at 27% by starting with its 30% in-app commission and subtracting 3% for payment-processing costs it would no longer incur. Developers, however, still had to pay their own external processor and related costs.
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That meant the total cost could exceed Apple’s ordinary 30% in-app commission once external processing, fraud, refunds, taxes and support were included. Apple also required reporting and audit information and placed restrictions on the presentation of links. The practical question was therefore not merely whether a link technically existed, but whether the economic and user-experience conditions made it commercially useful.
The Ninth Circuit’s opinion describes the policy and Apple’s 27% calculation.
Why the district court found contempt
Epic argued that Apple’s framework did not meaningfully allow steering. In Epic’s view, a large fee combined with limitations on link design, placement and wording made external payment unattractive to developers and harder for users to understand. Warnings and additional steps could further reduce the likelihood that a customer completed checkout outside the app.
Judge Rogers found Apple in civil contempt and concluded that the combination of fees and restrictions defeated the injunction’s purpose. In other words, the court treated a nominally available link as insufficient if Apple’s surrounding conditions functionally discouraged customers from using it.
The district court also referred Apple and an Apple executive to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible criminal-contempt consideration. That was a referral for possible investigation—not a criminal conviction.
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Apple disputed that interpretation. It maintained that the injunction did not clearly and unambiguously address commissions on external purchases and that the court could not use the injunction’s broad purpose to prohibit conduct that its text did not expressly mention.
What happened to Apple’s stay request
The Ninth Circuit rejected Apple’s request to pause the order in June 2025. Apple therefore could not simply preserve its disputed 27% commission while the appeal proceeded.
That does not mean Apple permanently lost the ability to charge any fee. The later appellate ruling distinguished between Apple’s challenged 27% structure and a possible fee designed to recover costs genuinely associated with supporting linked-out purchases.
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In December 2025, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the core contempt finding and much of the relief against Apple, while modifying parts of the remedy and remanding the commission issue to the district court.
The court said Apple should not charge a commission until the district court approves an appropriate fee. The decision therefore did not establish that the permissible rate must be zero forever. Instead, it left the district court to determine whether Apple could charge a properly tailored, cost-based amount.
The district-court remand materials describe the fee process.
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What the Supreme Court is deciding in 2026
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a narrow contempt question:
Can civil contempt be imposed for violating an injunction’s “spirit” when the injunction does not clearly and unambiguously prohibit the specific conduct at issue?
The Court did not accept a broad challenge asking it to limit the injunction to Epic rather than developers generally. Nor did it authorize Apple’s 27% fee.
The Supreme Court’s decision could affect whether the contempt finding survives, but it is not a direct ruling on the final amount Apple may charge for external-payment transactions. The district court still has a separate role under the Ninth Circuit’s remand instructions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the district-court fee proceeding matters
Under the remand schedule, Apple was to submit a proposal describing how it would implement the Ninth Circuit’s mandate and proposing a commission, along with nonprivileged supporting documents. Epic would respond with its own evidence and objections, followed by a possible Apple reply and further proceedings.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Apple indicated that it would seek to pause those proceedings while the Supreme Court considered its contempt appeal. July 2026 reports described that request and Epic’s opposition. The materials available for this update do not establish a final ruling on that latest district-court motion.
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The legal and commercial outcome could therefore involve two separate decisions: the Supreme Court’s answer about contempt and the district court’s determination of whether any cost-based fee is justified.
What this means for developers and app businesses
The immediate issue is relevant to digital goods and services sold through apps, not every transaction initiated from an iPhone. Physical goods and many real-world services have historically been treated differently under Apple’s payment rules.
The injunction concerns the U.S. App Store storefront. Developers should not assume that the same link-out rights or fee treatment automatically apply in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea or other markets, where separate laws, agreements and Apple programs may apply.
External checkout may be worth considering when:
- the business has high transaction volume;
- it already operates a reliable web checkout;
- external processing costs are materially below Apple’s applicable commission;
- the product can tolerate users leaving the app; and
- the company can manage fraud, refunds, taxes, subscriptions, support and payment compliance.
It may be a poor fit when:
- the developer lacks an established web-payment operation;
- processing, fraud, tax, support and subscription costs approach the App Store cost;
- the product depends on impulse purchases or one-tap conversion; or
- the business serves multiple regions with different payment and regulatory rules.
“No Apple commission” also does not mean “no payment cost.” A developer may still pay card-network and processor fees, chargeback and fraud losses, taxes, refunds, subscription-management costs and customer-support expenses. Leaving the app can also reduce conversion because users may face browser redirects, authentication, account creation or interrupted payment continuity.
Before shipping an external checkout, a developer should verify Apple’s current developer rules and assess the complete economics—not just compare 27% with a processor’s headline rate.
Key dates
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 2020 | Epic bypassed Apple’s in-app payment system in Fortnite. |
| September 10, 2021 | Judge Rogers issued the anti-steering injunction. |
| April 2023 | The Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction. |
| January 16, 2024 | The injunction took effect and Apple implemented its external-link framework. |
| April 30, 2025 | The district court found Apple in contempt and barred the disputed commission. |
| May 7–8, 2025 | Apple sought an emergency partial stay. |
| June 2025 | The Ninth Circuit denied the stay. |
| December 11, 2025 | The Ninth Circuit upheld the core contempt finding and remanded the fee issue. |
| April–May 2026 | The mandate took effect and the district court established a fee-proposal process. |
| June 30, 2026 | The Supreme Court agreed to hear the narrow contempt-standard question. |
| July 2026 | Apple sought to pause the district-court remand proceedings. |
Bottom line
Apple’s immediate attempt to preserve its 27% external-payment regime failed when the Ninth Circuit denied its 2025 stay request. But the dispute is not a permanent “30% versus zero” ruling. The Ninth Circuit upheld the core contempt finding while leaving room for a court-approved fee based on Apple’s actual costs. The Supreme Court is now reviewing the contempt standard, while the district court works through the separate question of what fee, if any, Apple may charge.
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