Apple on October 29, 2026 said it would lower the commission it charges on standard in-app purchases and paid app sales on the Taiwan storefront of the App Store from 30% to 26%, effective October 31, "following discussions with the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission," according to a notice on its developer news page. A day later, Taiwan's competition authority said it had accepted the cut as a commitment from Apple and suspended an investigation into the company's App Store fees and its restrictions on developers, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.

In Short

Apple takes a cut of the money people spend on apps and in-app purchases, and in Taiwan that cut has dropped from 30% to 26% for most sales since October 31. Taiwan's competition regulator, which had been investigating whether Apple's fees and rules were unfair to app makers, accepted the change and paused its investigation instead of ruling on the case. The regulator says it will watch whether Apple sticks to the promise and can restart the investigation if it does not. Smaller app makers and long-running subscriptions, which already paid 15%, see no change.

What Apple posted on October 29

The notice, titled "Adjustments to the Taiwan storefront of the App Store on iOS and iPadOS," runs to five short paragraphs. Its central sentence is precise about scope: "As of October 31, 2026, the commission rate for standard Apple In-App Purchase and paid app transactions will be 26% on the Taiwan storefront of the App Store on iOS and iPadOS. Currently, that rate is 30%."

Apple gave developers two days' notice. It also removed any paperwork deadline. "Signing the updated terms by October 31 is not required to receive the benefit of these commission rate changes starting that date," the notice states. The Apple Developer Program License Agreement, according to Apple, "has been revised to support updated policies," and developers can sign in to their accounts to accept it. Translations of the revised agreement will follow "within one month," which places them around the end of November 2026. A Traditional Chinese version of the notice, linked from the English page, carries the same content.

That is the whole of it. The notice does not mention an investigation, a commitment or a suspension. It does not say why the new rate is 26%, how many developers are affected, or what Apple and the commission discussed.

Attachment 15: two sentences in the contract

The legal mechanism sits in the developer agreement, which now carries a new Attachment 15 setting out additional terms for iOS and iPadOS apps on the Taiwan storefront. The agreement's closing notes state that the main agreement, including Schedule 1, was last updated on October 29, 2026, while Schedules 2 and 3 still carry the date of the October 13 revision that introduced group and volume subscription seats.

Attachment 15 is two sentences long. The first says its terms apply, as of October 31, 2026, to commissions and payments for apps distributed on the Taiwan storefront of the App Store on iOS and iPadOS. The second amends and restates the Paid Applications Agreement, which is Schedule 2, so that Apple's standard commission rate on sales of what the contract calls Licensed Applications is 26%.

Nothing else is in it. Compare that with the attachment Apple wrote for China mainland. Attachment 13, in force since March 15, 2026, also lowered the standard rate, to 25%, but it went on to amend the Paid Applications Agreement and the Mini Apps Partner Program Addendum so that the reduced rate fell to 12% for members of the App Store Small Business Program, for sales qualifying under the Mini Apps Partner Program, and for auto-renewing subscriptions beyond their first year. Taiwan's attachment contains no equivalent clause.

On PPC Land's reading of the agreement, that leaves the reduced rates on the Taiwan storefront where Schedule 2 sets them. Section 3.4(a) of Schedule 2 charges 15% on renewals once a subscriber has accrued more than one year of paid service within a subscription group, and Section 3.4(b) charges 15% to developers approved for the App Store Small Business Program, which is open to developers whose total proceeds, together with their associated accounts, did not exceed $1,000,000 in the prior calendar year. Apple's notice, which limits the change to "standard" transactions, is consistent with that reading.

Which apps fall outside the change

Three further limits follow from the text. First, the attachment names iOS and iPadOS only. Apps sold through the App Store on macOS, tvOS, watchOS or visionOS to Taiwanese customers are not mentioned, and on the face of the agreement remain under Schedule 2's 30% standard rate. Second, the attachment amends Schedule 2 alone. Schedule 3, which governs Custom App Distribution to businesses and schools and sets its own 30% standard commission, is not referenced. Third, the change attaches to the storefront, not to the developer. A game studio in Seoul or a subscription app in Berlin selling to customers on the Taiwan storefront is covered in the same way as a developer based in Taipei.

The arithmetic

On a sale at the standard rate, the developer's share rises from 70% to 74% of the price, net of taxes collected. On PPC Land's calculation, that is 5.7% more in proceeds for the developer on each such transaction, and a 13.3% reduction in Apple's take.

Who captures that? Because the 15% tiers are unchanged, the benefit is concentrated where the 30% rate applied before: paid app downloads, consumable and non-consumable in-app purchases, and the first year of subscriptions, sold by developers whose proceeds put them above the Small Business Program threshold. Larger mobile game publishers and subscription businesses with Taiwanese customers are the most obvious beneficiaries. A small independent developer already paying 15% sees no difference at all.

There is no public figure for the size of the Taiwan storefront, and Apple's notice offers none. For scale across the whole store, Apple has said that App Store ecosystem billings and sales reached $1.4 trillion in 2025, according to a study by Analysis Group that it commissioned. Digital goods and services, the only category in which Apple's commission can apply, accounted for $149 billion of that total, and Apple said more than 90% of billings and sales carried no commission at all.

The regulator's side

The Taiwan Fair Trade Commission gave its own account on October 30. It said it had accepted a commitment that Apple voluntarily proposed to lower the standard commission rate on the Taiwan App Store, according to the Central News Agency. The commission had been examining whether Apple's restrictions on app developers, and the fee widely referred to in Taiwan as the "Apple tax," breached the Fair Trade Act. It suspended that investigation under Article 28 of the act.

Suspension is not closure. The commission said it would monitor Apple's performance of the commitment and would resume the investigation if Apple fails to perform it, if the facts on which the suspension decision rested change materially, or if the decision turns out to have been based on incomplete or untrue information, according to the Central News Agency. Other restrictive conduct, the commission added, would be assessed case by case. Developers in Taiwan do not need to apply or take any other step to receive the lower rate.

Economic Daily News reported more of the background, citing an unnamed commission official. As authorities in several countries turned their attention to Apple's commissions and its business restrictions on developers, the commission opened its own case, and it heard concerns from domestic developers while the investigation was under way, according to the newspaper. The official described Apple as having considerable market power, which was why the commission needed to examine further whether its fees and trading conditions restricted competition. The commission made no finding of a violation. It accepted the commitment by resolution of its members.

Why 26%? The commission's answer is benchmarking. The new rate is the same as in Japan and Brazil, according to the Central News Agency. Economic Daily News, citing the official, added that Apple's standard rate had generally been 30%, that some markets had seen cuts after local regulators intervened, and that matching Japan and Brazil eased concerns about high commissions.

The coverage also records what the commission did not disclose. Neither the Central News Agency nor Economic Daily News gives a date on which the investigation opened, the number of developers who raised concerns, a monitoring period or any reporting schedule for Apple. Economic Daily News noted that Apple, in its own notice, did not disclose the substance of the discussions. A partner at PwC Legal Taiwan, quoted in the same newspaper, said the central question was whether Apple used its platform advantage to charge unreasonable fees, and that commission is an operating cost for developers that may be passed on to consumers.

Matching Japan and Brazil, on one dimension only

The Japan and Brazil comparison holds up against Apple's own contract, but only for the in-app purchase rate. Attachment 12 of the developer agreement, which covers both storefronts, sets a 21% commission on sales through Apple's in-app purchase system plus a separate 5% fee for payment processing and related commerce services, for a combined 26%. The reduced tier is 10% plus the same 5% fee, or 15% in total. Those are the same totals now in place in Taiwan.

The difference lies in what surrounds the rate. In Japan, where the changes arrived in December 2025 under the Mobile Software Competition Act, Apple opened iOS to alternative app marketplaces, alternative payment processing and links to outside websites, each with its own fee schedule. The European Union looks similar. Under terms Apple published in August and which took effect on October 1, 2026, the in-app purchase rate is 26%, alternative payment processing carries a 20% commission and sales on alternative marketplaces a 5% Core Technology Commission, with lower tiers for qualifying developers.

Taiwan's attachment adds none of those options. The App Review Guidelines, last updated on October 16, 2026, still state in guideline 3.1.3 that apps cannot, within the app, encourage users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, except on the United States storefront and under specific entitlements described elsewhere in the guidelines. The guidelines do not mention Taiwan. Developers on the Taiwan storefront therefore pay Japanese and European in-app rates without the alternatives that, in those markets, put competitive pressure on the in-app rate.

Storefront Standard in-app rate Reduced in-app rate Other routes in the agreement
Default (Schedule 2) 30% 15% None
China mainland (from March 15, 2026) 25% 12% None
Japan and Brazil 21% plus 5% fee 10% plus 5% fee Alternative payments, outside links, alternative marketplaces
European Union (from October 1, 2026) 26% 15% Alternative payments, outside links, alternative marketplaces
Taiwan (from October 31, 2026) 26% 15% (unchanged) None

A pattern of negotiated cuts

Taiwan follows a template Apple used in China mainland earlier this year: a rate cut that follows talks with a regulator, rather than a statute or a court order. In March, Apple said it would lower the China mainland standard commission from 30% to 25% following discussions with the Chinese regulator, which it did not name. That notice, dated March 12, took effect on March 15, gave three days' warning and, like the Taiwan notice, did not require developers to sign updated terms first.

Both notices cite discussions with a regulator, give a few days of warning and waive the signing requirement. In China, as in Taiwan, the outcome was a rate cut with no new payment or distribution options.

Elsewhere the drivers have been harder-edged. Europe's changes came under the Digital Markets Act. In the United States, a federal judge held Apple in civil contempt on April 30, 2025 in the Epic Games case and barred it from charging any commission on purchases made outside apps. In October 2025, the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that Apple had abused a dominant position in a class action brought on behalf of about 36 million people; the tribunal said a commission for app distribution under competitive conditions would likely range from 5% to 10%, with payment services at 2% to 5%. Apple indicated it would appeal. In September 2026, a clause in Apple's UK developer terms extending its commission to purchases made within seven days of an outside link drew attention from developers.

Measured against the tribunal's range, a 26% rate remains high. Measured against what Apple charges for its own payment system in the EU, Japan and Brazil, it is now level.

What the notice leaves open

Several questions are not answered by Apple's notice, by the agreement, or by the commission's statement as reported.

The first is consumer prices. Apple's notice is addressed to developers and says nothing about what Taiwanese customers pay. Whether any of the four points reaches app buyers depends on decisions developers make about their own price tiers, and the commission did not say whether pass-through formed any part of its assessment.

The second is duration. The suspension rests on monitoring, and the commission has published no monitoring period. Apple's contract, for its part, allows it to change its terms at any time, with developers required to accept each new version to keep using its services.

The third is the rest of the investigation. The commission examined both the commission rate and Apple's restrictions on developers, but only the rate changed. Its statement that other restrictive conduct would be handled case by case leaves open whether link-out rules or payment restrictions on the Taiwan storefront could become a separate matter.

The fourth is the gap with China. Developers on the China mainland storefront pay one point less at the standard rate and three points less at the reduced rate than developers on the Taiwan storefront. Neither Apple nor the commission addressed the difference.

Why this matters for the marketing community

For mobile marketers, commission rates are not an abstraction. The value of a paying user, and therefore the budget a game publisher or subscription app can justify for acquiring one, is calculated on what reaches the developer after Apple's share. On the Taiwan storefront, that share for standard-rate sales moved by four points overnight, with no change to the apps themselves.

The change also adds another line to an increasingly fragmented rate card. A developer distributing globally now deals with a default 30% and 15% schedule, separate China mainland rates, a Japan and Brazil structure that splits commission from a payment processing fee, EU terms with three payment routes, a United States storefront where link-outs carry no commission, and now a Taiwan rate that matches Europe on paper but not in practice. Each regime affects how revenue is reported, how promotions are priced and how return on ad spend is compared across markets. PPC Land's reading of the October 13 subscription seat terms found the Schedule 2 rates unchanged beneath group and volume subscriptions, while programs such as the Mini Apps Partner Program, with its 85% developer share, run on separate terms.

And it shows how much of Apple's fee policy is now set storefront by storefront, in response to whichever regulator applies pressure. The Taiwan cut was negotiated in private, published in a five-paragraph notice and implemented in two days. What it does not include, such as alternative payments, outside links or a lower reduced tier, may matter as much to developers as what it does.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Apple, app developers selling on the Taiwan storefront of the App Store, and the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission, which had been investigating Apple's fees and developer restrictions.

What: Apple cut the standard commission on in-app purchases and paid app sales on the Taiwan storefront for iOS and iPadOS from 30% to 26% through a new Attachment 15 to its developer agreement. The 15% rates for Small Business Program members and for subscriptions beyond their first year are not changed by the attachment, and no alternative payment or link-out options were added. The commission accepted the cut as a commitment and suspended its investigation, which it can resume.

When: Apple posted the notice on October 29, 2026. The commission announced its decision on October 30, and the new rate took effect on October 31, 2026. Translations of the agreement are due within one month.

Where: The Taiwan storefront of the App Store on iOS and iPadOS. Apps on other Apple platforms and Custom App Distribution under Schedule 3 are not covered by the attachment.

Why: Apple said the change followed discussions with the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission. The commission said it had investigated whether Apple's fees and restrictions breached the Fair Trade Act, heard concerns from domestic developers, and accepted the 26% rate because it matches the level in Japan and Brazil.