Fortnite Google Play Australia: Fees Drop to 20% [2026]

What the ACCC Actually Authorized on September 2

The ACCC’s determination does not simply wave through a private contract. Under Australian competition law, companies need regulatory authorization before putting certain settlement terms into effect if those terms could otherwise raise competition concerns. Google and Epic filed their application on March 17, 2026, roughly two weeks after the pair’s global settlement in the underlying US antitrust case. The ACCC’s public register entry shows the authorization covers Google Play service fees and the rules governing alternative payment options inside Android apps sold in Australia.

The regulator granted a six-year authorization running through September 30, 2032 — meaning Google cannot unilaterally revert to its old fee structure in Australia without triggering fresh scrutiny before that date. That is an unusually long runway for a competition settlement, and it signals the ACCC wanted certainty rather than a short pilot period that Google could quietly let lapse.

Why Australia Was the Last Market Standing

Fortnite’s worldwide bans trace back to a single stunt: in August 2020, Epic shipped a Fortnite update with a hidden direct-payment option that bypassed both Apple’s and Google’s in-app billing systems, each of which charged roughly 30% on digital purchases. Both platforms pulled the game within hours, and Epic filed lawsuits almost immediately — in the US, and separately in the Federal Court of Australia, where Epic sued Google in August 2021 and Apple a year earlier.

Australia’s case moved on its own clock, independent of the American litigation. On August 12, 2025, Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach ruled that both Apple and Google had misused market power by restricting alternative app distribution and in-app payment methods on their respective platforms. That finding predates the global Epic-Google settlement by roughly seven months, which is part of why Australia ended up as a late addition to Fortnite’s comeback rather than part of the original wave.

Once Epic and Google reached their worldwide settlement in March 2026, Epic’s separate Australian case against Google was dismissed by consent, folding the local dispute into the same global deal. Apple took a different path. No equivalent settlement exists in Australia, and the relief hearing determining what remedies Apple must implement resumed in the Federal Court on April 28, 2026, with the ACCC granted leave to intervene in that proceeding.