The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority proposed in June 2026 to make Apple and Google let developers steer users toward payment options outside their app stores, calling it a Steering Conduct Requirement. The consultation closed seven weeks ago, the CMA published the responses it received a month ago, and its own case page still shows no decision.
The proposal covers the same mobile platform that ships iPhone 18 Pro and, from October, iPhone Duo, though neither launch date is connected to the CMA’s timetable. Apple’s iOS 27 update, covered in Apple’s September event recap, ships this month on its own schedule regardless of what the CMA eventually decides.
Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Proposal | Steering Conduct Requirement, for Apple’s and Google’s mobile platforms |
| Regulator | UK Competition and Markets Authority |
| Consultation opened | June 30, 2026 |
| Submissions closed | July 28, 2026 |
| Responses published | August 14, 2026 |
| Decision | Not published |
What the CMA says the requirement would actually do
The CMA’s own description of the proposal is specific: it would remove the restrictions that currently stop developers from “engaging directly with their users outside Apple and Google’s app stores,” under principles meant to ensure that “fees Apple and Google charge for steering are fair and reasonable.” In substance, that targets the same kind of conduct the European Commission fined Apple €500 million for in April 2025 under the EU’s separate anti-steering rules, though the CMA’s proposal is a consultation rather than a finding, and it covers Google’s Play Store alongside Apple’s App Store. A related work-stream opened the same day covers developer access to NFC on the iPhone; that question, tracked separately, has no closing date at all, unlike the steering proposal’s clear submission deadline.
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Where the proposal sits inside Apple’s UK designation
The Steering Conduct Requirement is one strand of the obligations the CMA is building under Apple’s Strategic Market Status designation, issued October 22, 2025 after a case opened January 23, 2025. Final commitments from Apple already took effect April 1, 2026, covering app review, ranking and interoperable access to iOS functionality, and the CMA describes those commitments as giving UK developers more certainty about app distribution rules that were already settled. The Steering Conduct Requirement would sit alongside those commitments as an additional, more specific rule about payment steering, not replace anything already in effect, if the CMA ultimately adopts it.
| Already in effect (April 1, 2026 commitments) | Still only proposed (Steering Conduct Requirement) |
|---|---|
| App review and ranking commitments Apple made under its Strategic Market Status designation | A rule requiring Apple to let developers steer users to payment options outside the App Store |
| A process for developers to request interoperable access to iOS functionality | Principles for what counts as a “fair and reasonable” steering fee, not yet defined in a decision |
| Covers Apple’s mobile platform only, per the October 2025 designation | Covers both Apple and Google, proposed as parallel rules for both platforms |
A month between published responses and any decision
The CMA published the responses to its own consultation on August 14, 2026, the most recent dated entry on its case page for Apple’s mobile platform. Among them is a non-confidential submission from Spotify, posted directly on the regulator’s own servers under the company’s own name rather than filed confidentially. As of this month, no decision has followed the published responses. The gap is not unusual on its own, other steps under Apple’s designation have taken months to move from published responses to a final rule, but it means the requirement UK developers commented on in July remains a proposal rather than a rule, a month past the point the responses themselves went public.
What has not been confirmed
- Any CMA decision on the Steering Conduct Requirement itself.
- A published timetable for when a decision might follow.
- Any Apple statement on the proposal beyond its existing April 2026 commitments.
Today is September 13, 2026. The CMA’s own case page for Apple’s mobile platform designation is where a decision on the Steering Conduct Requirement will be published first, alongside any update to the separate NFC access question the same case covers.
