Japan’s Fair Trade Commission published Apple’s second compliance report under the Mobile Software Competition Act on July 27, 2026, and on August 21, an industry coalition told the same regulator that the report shows an unwillingness to comply rather than compliance.
Japan is also one of the first countries where iPhone 18 Pro and iOS 27 both arrive this month, covered in Apple’s September event recap, and later one of the countries iPhone Duo is confirmed to reach in October. None of that product calendar is connected to the regulatory dispute below.
Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Law | Mobile Software Competition Act (Japan’s smartphone law) |
| Regulator | Japan Fair Trade Commission |
| Law took effect | December 18, 2025 |
| Apple’s second compliance report published | July 27, 2026 |
| Report covers | December 18, 2025 to March 31, 2026 |
| Coalition for App Fairness letter to the JFTC | August 21, 2026 |
What the law requires, and what Apple’s report says it did
Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act is described as Asia’s first comprehensive ex ante regulation of mobile platform operators, reaching full enforcement when it took effect on December 18, 2025. It requires Apple to permit alternative app marketplaces and alternative payment processing on iPhone in Japan, among other measures. Apple had already published its own account of the iOS changes it made to comply, effective with iOS 26.2 and carrying a March 17, 2026 deadline for developers to accept the associated license terms. The JFTC’s second compliance report, covering the law’s first full reporting period through the end of Japan’s fiscal year on March 31, 2026, details measures the regulator’s own summary describes as covering support for alternative app stores, data portability and interoperability. The JFTC invited businesses and other stakeholders to comment on the report and to flag suspected violations through its own online forms.
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An industry coalition calls the reports insufficient
On August 21, 2026, the Coalition for App Fairness sent a letter to the JFTC arguing that Apple’s and Google’s compliance reports “demonstrate their unwillingness to give up their ability to extract ‘rents’ rather than compete.” The letter warned that continued non-compliance “could leave Japan as an outlier in permitting these monopolistic platforms to extract unfair and discriminatory rents,” and urged the regulator to pursue formal enforcement action. It followed an earlier submission, reported in July 2026, in which eleven Japanese competition-law scholars separately told the JFTC that Apple and Google may not be fully complying with the law and called for stronger oversight, alongside proposals reportedly floated by lawmakers from Japan’s ruling party.
Where that leaves the JFTC
The JFTC has not published a response to either the scholars’ submission or the Coalition for App Fairness letter. Its compliance-report process runs on a schedule tied to Japan’s fiscal year, so the next report covering Apple’s conduct is not due until after the close of the current fiscal year. Whatever the regulator does with the criticism it received this month, nothing on its own site yet states an enforcement step beyond inviting comment and violation reports from businesses.
| Date | Event in Japan’s Smartphone Act enforcement pressure |
|---|---|
| December 18, 2025 | Mobile Software Competition Act takes effect |
| March 17, 2026 | Deadline for developers to accept Apple’s related license terms |
| July 2026 | Eleven Japanese scholars submit criticism of Apple and Google’s compliance to the JFTC |
| July 27, 2026 | JFTC publishes Apple’s and Google’s second compliance reports |
| August 21, 2026 | Coalition for App Fairness letter urges the JFTC toward formal enforcement |
Nothing in that sequence is a penalty or an enforcement order. Each entry is either a step Apple or the JFTC itself has published, or a submission a named third party sent the regulator. The compliance-report mechanism, the comment period the JFTC opened around it, and the criticism aimed at both are all running concurrently, and the JFTC’s own site is the only place that will show whether any of it becomes a formal proceeding.
What Apple has not said
- Any direct response to the Coalition for App Fairness’s August 21 letter.
- Any response to the Japanese scholars’ July submission.
- When, or whether, it plans to publish anything beyond the JFTC’s own compliance-report cycle.
Today is September 13, 2026. The JFTC’s own press release page is where any enforcement step, or any published Apple response, would appear first.
