The DMA's First App Store Fees: Apple and Meta Fined

The European Commission has issued its first DMA app store fees under the Digital Markets Act, fining Apple in the region of EUR 500 million over anti-steering restrictions and Meta roughly EUR 200 million over its pay-or-consent advertising model. Both companies plan to appeal. For UA teams the number matters less than the reasoning behind it, because that reasoning is the clearest signal yet of how the Commission intends to enforce the DMA against American platforms specifically.

This isn't the DMA's opening move. Gatekeeper obligations have applied since March last year, and Apple has already made several rounds of changes to its EU App Store terms in response; what's new is that Brussels has converted a compliance dispute into a fine, and a fine sets precedent where a guidance document only suggests it.

What each of the DMA app store fees actually covers

Apple's penalty concerns anti-steering. The DMA requires gatekeepers to let developers tell users, inside their own apps, about cheaper ways to subscribe or pay outside the App Store, and to link to them without extra friction or fees designed to discourage the practice. The Commission's view, in short, is that Apple's compliance changes so far still make steering commercially unattractive even where they permit it in principle.

Meta's fine targets its pay-or-consent model, the choice EU users get between a paid ad-free tier and a free tier that accepts personalised advertising. The Commission has argued that this framing gives users no genuine free alternative, since consenting to tracking is in practice the only no-cost option on the table. Meta disputes that characterisation. It has said it will contest the decision, and its appeal will run on a timeline measured in years rather than quarters.

Neither ruling touches SKAN or AAK, and neither changes how game ads serve inside either platform's properties today.

What they do is put a number, for the first time, beside the cost of gatekeeper non-compliance, which changes how much room both companies have when they sit down to negotiate whatever terms follow.

As we wrote in The EU Digital Markets Act and App Stores, One Year On, Apple's EU compliance since March last year had already produced a distinct set of App Store terms for the region: a Core Technology Fee on installs beyond a threshold and alternative marketplaces, plus steering language Apple revised more than once under Commission pressure. This fine doesn't replace that framework. It penalises how Apple implemented it, which is a narrower and, in some ways, more useful signal; Brussels isn't asking for a different rulebook, it wants Apple to follow the existing one without quietly building the friction back in through the small print.

Why the timing matters for buyers

This ruling lands one week after a US federal judge found Google liable for illegally monopolising publisher ad server and ad exchange markets, and while a separate US court still has Apple's own anti-steering compliance under active review following the Epic v Apple case. Buyers now face DMA enforcement in Europe and antitrust proceedings in the US converging on the same handful of platforms in the same month. None of these processes coordinate with each other. Their outcomes will land on the same media plans regardless.

The practical read for a UA team is that platform terms in both regions are now more likely to change on short notice than at any point since the DMA took effect, so a budget model that assumes today's commission structure and link-out restrictions will hold for the rest of the year, along with today's consent flows, is provisional rather than settled.

What a UA team should actually do with this

Reacting to every regulatory headline with a strategy review is its own failure mode. A more useful response is a standing checklist that a platforms lead runs through whenever a DMA or antitrust decision lands, rather than starting from scratch each time.

• Check whether the ruling changes anything about how your own campaigns are billed or measured today, as opposed to how the platform is structured. Most rulings, including this one, change platform economics before they change buyer-facing mechanics.
• Note the appeal timeline. Fines under DMA and DOJ processes typically take months or years to resolve on appeal, so treat today's ruling as a signal of direction rather than an immediate operational change.
• Separate what the ruling means for the platform's EU business from what it means globally. Apple's and Meta's EU terms have diverged from their global terms since the DMA took effect, and that divergence is likely to widen rather than narrow from here.
• Flag any dependency your web shop or link-out flow has on the specific compliance terms under dispute, since those are the terms most likely to move again.
• Keep a one-page log of every EU-specific platform term your studio currently operates under, alongside the global default. As we argued in Google's Ad Tech Antitrust Ruling, Explained for Buyers, the gap between regional terms and global terms is now wide enough that a single global media plan risks getting details wrong in at least one market.

What to watch next

Both Apple and Meta have said they will appeal, which means the practical terms most buyers deal with day to day are unlikely to change immediately. The more useful signal to track is whether the Commission opens further proceedings against either company covering areas this decision left alone, since that would suggest Brussels sees this fine as a first instalment rather than a settlement. A UA budget built on stable EU platform terms through the rest of the year is making a bet the regulatory record doesn't currently support. Treat every EU-specific line item in that budget as a variable, not a constant, until the appeal calendar clears.

Related archive reading

These articles provide related context and remain subject to their stated review status.

• The DMA for UA operators, in plain terms
• The EU Digital Markets Act and App Stores, One Year On