Apple has again failed to earn a stay for fee calculations in its ongoing legal fight with Epic Games. Apple's case will be heard by the Supreme Court in the term that begins in October, and Apple asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to pause proceedings until then, but the court said no [PDF].
Apple now has 24 hours to give the court an outline of the fees it wants to charge developers for using alternative payment options and linking out to purchase options on the web. Epic Games will then be able to give a legal analysis of Apple's fee proposal, and the court will decide what's reasonable.
Apple's stay was denied! Now they have 24 hours to file their proposed menu of junk fees with The Court, and Epic will have 60 days to file our legal analysis in advance of a court hearing on the topic. — Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 11, 2026
Fee calculations are the result of a long, drawn-out dispute between Epic Games and Apple, which started when Epic sued Apple in 2020. Apple largely won the initial legal fight, but was ordered to change its anti-steering rules to let developers link to non-App Store purchase options. Apple complied, but charged a 12 to 27 percent fee that resulted in few developers choosing to use the option.
Epic Games accused Apple of violating the court's order and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed. In April 2025, she found Apple in contempt of court for willfully violating her ruling, and stopped Apple from collecting any fees on links in the U.S. App Store.
Apple appealed, and the appeals court upheld the contempt ruling, but said Apple was entitled to reasonable fees for its intellectual property. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court to figure out what a reasonable fee might be. Apple has not been able to collect payment for link-outs since April 2025, and right now, there are no fees.
The appeals court ruling that continued to hold Apple in contempt led Apple to appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Apple sought a pause on the fee calculations because the higher court's decision could undo the contempt ruling, but the appeals court, Supreme Court, and now the district court have denied Apple's pause requests.
The court will now determine a fee, and Apple will need to change its App Store rules to comply. The fee that's set in this legal battle could have implications well beyond the United States because Apple told the Supreme Court that regulators around the world are watching to see the outcome.
