Google ends its 30 percent app store fee and welcomes third-party app stores

Google is officially doing away with its 30 percent cut of Play Store transactions, and rolling out changes to how third-party app stores and alternate billing systems will be handled by Android. Some of these tweaks were proposed as part of the settlement the company reached with Epic in November 2025, but rather than wait for final judicial approval, Google is committing to revamping Android and the Play Store publicly.

The biggest change is to how Google will collect fees from developers publishing apps on Android. Rather than take its standard 30 percent cut of in-app purchases through the Play Store, Google is lowering its cut to 20 percent, and in some cases 15 percent for new installs of apps from developers participating in its new App Experience program or updated Google Play Games Level Up program. Those changes extend to subscriptions, too, where the company’s cut is lowering to 10 percent. For Google’s billing system, the company says developers in the UK, US, or European Economic Area (EEA) will now be charged a five percent fee and "a market-specific rate" in other regions. Of course, for anyone trying to avoid those fees, using alternatives to Google's billing system is getting easier.

Google says that developers will be able to offer alternative billing systems alongside its own or "guide users outside of their app to their own websites for purchases." The setup, as described by Google, appears to be more permissive than what Apple settled on in 2025. For iOS apps on the App Store, developers interested in avoiding Apple's fees can only direct customers to alternative payment methods on the web through in-app links. Allowing for these outside transactions is part of what prompted Epic to bring Fortnite back to the App Store in the US in May 2025. The developer added the app back to the Play Store in the US in December of that year, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney shared alongside today's changes that Fortnite will soon be available in Google's app store globally.

Epic is ultimately interested in getting people to use the mobile version of its Epic Games Store, and Google’s announcement also includes details on how third-party app stores can come to Android. Third-party app stores will be able to apply to the company's new "Registered App Stores" program to see if they meet "certain quality and safety benchmarks." If they do, they'll be able to take advantage of a streamlined installation interface in Android. Participating in the program is optional, and users will still be able to sideload alternative app stores that aren't part of the program, but Google clearly has a preference.  Changes the company plans to make to sideloading later in 2026 could deliberately make the process more difficult, which might force developers to apply to Google’s program.

Given the scale of the changes, not all of Google's tweaks will be available everywhere at the same time. Google says that its updated fee structure will come to the EEA, the UK and the US by June 30, Australia by September 30, Korea and Japan by December 31 and the entire world by September 30, 2027. Meanwhile, the company's updated Google Play Games Level Up program and new App Experience program will launch in the EEA, the UK, the US and Australia on September 30, before hitting the remaining regions alongside the updated fee structure. For any developers interested in offering their own app store, Google says it'll launch its Registered App Stores program "with a version of a major Android release" before the end of the year. According to the company, the program will be available in other regions first before it comes to the US.

Google has made changes to how it collects app store fees in the past, the most significant being in 2021, when it lowered its cut to 15 percent on the first $1 million developers earn, and 15 percent on subscriptions. The difference here is that the regulatory scrutiny brought about by Epic's lawsuit against Google and Apple seems to be a key motivator for its changes. Well, that, and an entirely separate business deal the company made with Epic. Google and Epic's settlement served as the basis for these changes, but The Verge reported in January that the companies also agreed to an $800 million joint partnership around product development and Google using Epic's "core technology." Letting developers keep more of their money is ultimately good, but it's a business decision Google felt comfortable making, which likely means it has its own share of upsides.