Apple’s federal lobbying spending surged in 2025, reaching a record $10 million after a nearly 30% year-over-year increase. Here are the details.
Apple breaks the $10M barrier in federal lobbying
Earlier today, Bloomberg reported on the overall increase in tech-sector lobbying spending. Notably absent from the report was Apple, which is usually among the industry’s top lobbying spenders.
9to5Mac checked the US Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act records and found that Apple spent an even $10 million on federal lobbying in 2025. That is a 27.9% increase from 2024, and marks the company’s highest annual lobbying total on record.
Moreover, quarterly spending rose in every quarter of 2025, peaking in Q4 at $2.73M, during which Apple also covered the broadest range of issues, including App Store competition bills, AI and consumer protection, semiconductor manufacturing, trade and international competitiveness, health technologies, and immigration.
Here’s the quarter-by-quarter breakdown:
- Q1: $2.45M
- Q2: $2.29M
- Q3: $2.53M
- Q4: $2.73M
Interestingly, a few issues persisted across the entire year, with App Store–related legislation appearing in every quarterly filing. Those recurring items were: the App Store Accountability Act, the Open App Markets Act, and the App Store Freedom Act, all of which seek to impose new rules on how large app platforms operate and compete.
Apple’s efforts also spanned nearly the entire federal government, with disclosed lobbying contacts ranging from Congress and the Executive Office of the President to agencies including the FCC, EPA, Treasury, Commerce, Defense, Energy, HHS, and USTR.
To put Apple’s lobbying efforts in context, earlier today Bloomberg published a ranking of tech companies’ lobbying spending for 2025, with Meta topping the list at $26.2M, followed by Amazon at $17.7M and Google at $13.1M. Had Apple been included, it would have ranked fourth, just ahead of Microsoft’s $9.3M.
For further details on Apple’s lobbying efforts, follow this link.
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