The ruling came down in Luxembourg on Tuesday, and the outcome settled a fight Apple has waged since 2023. The European Union’s General Court dismissed the iPhone maker’s appeal against its designation as a “gatekeeper” under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, confirming that the European Commission acted lawfully when it placed the App Store and iOS under the law’s obligations. The court also threw out Apple’s challenge concerning iMessage, ruling that part of the case was inadmissible.
Apple can still take the fight to the Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, and the company said it was reviewing the decision. But the ruling means that for now, Apple must comply with the DMA’s central demands: allow app developers to steer users to alternative payment systems, stop penalizing developers who do so, and open parts of its platform to competitors and interoperability requests. A person familiar with Apple’s thinking said the company would weigh the judgment carefully before deciding on a further appeal.
The stakes go well beyond the App Store’s 30% commission, which developers have complained about for more than a decade. The commission’s 2023 decision classified iOS, Safari, and the App Store as core platform services, making them subject to the DMA’s strictest rules. Tuesday’s ruling preserves that classification, and lawyers following the case said it hands regulators in Brussels a firmer legal foundation for what comes next.
The DMA has been the EU’s bluntest instrument against the largest technology companies, and Apple has been its most visible target. In March 2025, the Commission fined Apple €500 million over App Store rules that it said prevented developers from telling users about cheaper options outside the store. Apple is appealing that penalty separately, and Tuesday’s ruling does not directly touch it, though several lawyers said the reasoning could make that appeal harder to win.
What the decision does change is the direction of travel. The EU has opened multiple non-compliance investigations into how Apple runs the App Store, and the gatekeeper designations were the predicate for all of them. With the General Court now confirming that predicate, the enforcement docket moves forward without a legal cloud, according to people familiar with the commission’s planning.
Apple has not stood still in the meantime. In the European Union it now allows sideloading and alternative app marketplaces on iPhone, permits developers to offer their own payment systems, and has published fee structures for those options, concessions the company says it made reluctantly and that rivals say remain too onerous. Analysts who study the store economy said Tuesday’s ruling makes it harder for Apple to walk any of that back, even if the appeal continues.
The ripple effects are already visible outside Europe. Britain is building its own digital-markets regime under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, Japan has enacted rules on app stores and alternative payments, and U.S. legislators have introduced bills that borrow openly from the DMA’s playbook. Regulators in each of those places have been waiting for a definitive ruling in Brussels before pressing ahead, analysts said.
For developers, the ruling is a concrete change in position. Small app makers have long said the 30% commission, reduced to 15% for small businesses, leaves them little room to negotiate. The EU’s anti-steering obligations, once fully enforced, would let a developer tell a customer that the same subscription costs less on the web, a message Apple has historically banned.
Apple argues the App Store’s commission pays for security, privacy, and the infrastructure that lets developers reach more than a billion devices, and that the DMA forces it to weaken those protections. It has said it will comply with the law while challenging what it calls overreach. The company’s own numbers show how much is at stake: services revenue, which includes App Store commissions, is one of its most profitable lines, and Europe accounts for a significant share of it.
Neither side expects a quick end. An appeal to the Court of Justice would take roughly two years, and the €500 million fine case is still winding through the courts. In the meantime, the commission has said it will use the DMA’s investigation powers actively, and Apple’s next annual App Store transparency report will be read as a scorecard of how much its European business has actually changed.
The ruling also arrives as the commission prepares its annual report on DMA compliance, and regulators have signaled they will name companies that drag their feet. Analysts said Apple’s best path is pragmatic compliance that preserves its European business while the appeal plays out, rather than confrontation that invites stiffer penalties.
For the broader technology industry, the decision signals that the EU’s regulatory project has survived its first major legal test. Analysts said the ruling gives Brussels a template it can apply to other gatekeeper cases and other platforms. Apple, for its part, is left to argue its case one court up, and to a market that is already pricing in a smaller European App Store.
