Britain's Competition and Markets Authority is working toward a decision that could force Apple and Google to let app developers direct UK customers to payment options outside their app stores, the next major step in a regulatory regime that has already reshaped how both companies operate in the country.
The CMA designated Apple and Google with "strategic market status" over their mobile platforms on Oct. 22, 2025 — the first such designations issued under the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act — giving the regulator power to impose tailored "conduct requirements" on each firm for up to five years. After accepting a set of commitments from both companies in April covering app review, app ranking and interoperability, the CMA turned to the thornier issue of in-app payments, publishing a proposed steering conduct requirement on June 30.
What the rule would change
Apple currently bars developers from telling customers about cheaper ways to pay outside its App Store; Google restricts the practice more narrowly. The CMA's proposal would let UK developers point customers to their own websites or alternative payment methods rather than requiring every transaction to run through each platform's in-app billing system. Crucially, the regulator isn't proposing to ban fees on those steered transactions outright — Apple and Google could still charge developers something — but it wants that fee set through what Will Hayter, the CMA's executive director for digital markets, has described as "an evidence-led framework involving due reference to both cost and value," with the expectation that any new fee would come in below current app-store commissions.
Google moved first, announcing new global Play Store terms on June 24 that permit steering and that unbundle its service fee from a separate billing fee, with the changes taking effect in the UK on June 30 — timed to land just as the CMA's consultation opened. Apple has not announced equivalent changes in the UK.
Reaction to the proposal has split along familiar lines. Consumer group Which? broadly backs the plan but argues the draft rules give Apple and Google too much latitude in setting the steering fee, warning that developers could still end up paying inflated prices unless the CMA adopts a stricter cost-recovery approach. Epic Games, which has fought Apple and Google in courts on three continents over app-store control, has been more openly skeptical of the UK's broader approach, warning that vague anti-steering guidance elsewhere has produced years of what it calls "malicious compliance" rather than real competition.
The consultation on the steering proposal closed July 28, and the CMA published non-confidential responses on Aug. 14. The regulator has not announced when it will issue a final decision, though several respondents, including Japan's Association of New Economy, have urged it to rule before the end of 2026. Any firm found in breach of a final conduct requirement could face penalties of up to 10% of its global turnover — a figure steep enough to have already shaped Google's early move to rewrite its rules rather than wait for a mandate.
