Fortnite Returns to Apple App Store Worldwide Except Australia as Epic Pushes App-Store Fight

Fortnite has returned to Apple’s App Store in the United States and most other markets, according to Epic Games, reopening one of the world’s biggest mobile games on iPhones and iPads after nearly six years off the platform. But the comeback is not universal: Epic said Australia remains excluded for now.

The return is a significant new step in Epic’s long-running challenge to Apple’s App Store commissions and rules limiting how developers can direct users to pay outside Apple’s own in-app system. The dispute has never been only about whether Fortnite could be listed again. It has also centered on whether Apple can collect fees on purchases made outside its payment system, and on what terms developers can link users to those alternatives.

In a May 19 newsroom post titled “Fortnite is Back on the App Store Around the World as The Final Battle Approaches,” Epic said, “Fortnite is now back on the App Store worldwide.” But the company also said Fortnite has not yet returned to Apple’s Australian App Store because it is waiting for a court order there and will not relaunch under what Epic called an unlawful payment arrangement.

As of May 19, Fortnite’s listing was live in the U.S. App Store, confirming that the game is again available through Apple’s U.S. storefront.

Epic tied the move directly to Apple’s May 4 emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court. In that filing, Apple argued that “regulators around the world are watching this case to determine what commission rate Apple may charge on covered purchases in huge markets outside the United States.” Epic said it decided to bring Fortnite back after Apple made that argument. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said Tuesday that the return was part of the broader fight over App Store fees and outside payments, adding, “So we see this as the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide.”

The legal fight began on Aug. 13, 2020, when Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic added a direct payment option that bypassed Apple’s in-app purchase system. Epic sued the same day, setting off a case that became a focal point in the broader debate over the power Apple and Google hold over mobile app distribution and payments.

In September 2021, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a mixed ruling. She rejected Epic’s monopoly claim, but ordered Apple to stop preventing developers from steering users to payment options outside the App Store — a practice often called anti-steering because it bars apps from directing users elsewhere to pay.

The fight did not end there. In April 2025, Gonzalez Rogers held Apple in civil contempt over how it implemented that injunction and issued additional remedial orders. In December 2025, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed parts of that order, affirming some parts while reversing and sending other parts back for further proceedings. Then, in May 2026, Apple asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause the lower-court mandate. The high court declined to grant emergency relief, allowing the lower-court process over fees and remedies to keep moving.

Australia now stands as the main exception to Fortnite’s return. Epic’s position there rests on a separate case in which the Federal Court of Australia ruled in August 2025 that Apple and Google had misused market power in their app stores. Remedies in that case are still being worked out, and Epic said it will wait for a court order before returning Fortnite to Apple’s Australian App Store.