Under a deal with Brazil's competition regulator, iOS developers can use alternative app stores and external payments, paying Apple a 5% Core Technology Commission fee that mirrors the terms Apple accepted in the EU and Japan.
The iOS App Store is being unbundled market by market, and Brazil is the latest country under a deal with CADE, Brazil's competition regulator (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica), letting Apple open up iOS to alternative marketplaces and external payment processing. Under a deal with CADE, Brazil's competition regulator (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica), iOS developers can now distribute apps through alternative marketplaces and process payments for digital goods outside the App Store, according to Apple's developer announcement on June 18, 2026. Brazil becomes the third jurisdiction in roughly 18 months where Apple has been required to make these concessions, following the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Japan.
The shared architecture is what makes the deal look like a template rather than a one-off. Apple keeps a layer of control that has become familiar in other jurisdictions: a notarization process for iOS apps distributed outside the App Store, authorization requirements for alternative marketplaces, and new child-safety and anti-scam rules, per Apple's announcement. The economic centerpiece is a 5% Core Technology Commission (CTC) fee that Apple collects on transactions processed outside the store. The CTC replaced an older Core Technology Fee (CTF) in the EU in January, and its arrival in Brazil is the clearest sign yet that Apple is building out a similar framework across jurisdictions — with a notarization step, a marketplace authorization gate, and child-protection rules preserving App Store-level oversight even when distribution moves elsewhere.
Brazil's deal is a regulator-negotiated settlement, not a court outcome, which puts it in a different category from the U.S. Epic Games v. Apple litigation. The U.S. case forced Apple to let developers direct users to external payment options, but it did not require Apple to host competing app stores. CADE's agreement does both, and on Apple's own terms.
What to watch next is whether CADE treats the CTC-plus-safeguards structure Apple is building from the EU as a floor or a ceiling — a starting point it will push past, or the maximum opening regulators will accept. One of those two framings should be the final line; the other should be the next-90-days setup.