Starting on March 13, 2024, developers offering alternative billing for users in the EEA must use the alternative billing APIs. See details below and visit our alternative billing API integration guide to get started.
As part of our efforts to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we allow developers selling digital content or services the option of offering their users in the European Economic Area (EEA) an alternative to Google Play's billing system. Service fees, which support our investments in Play and Android, will continue to apply, and developers must pay Google the applicable service fees. For more information, see our blog post.
Eligibility
In order to be eligible for this program:
- Your app must be an app or game across any form factor offering alternative billing to users in the EEA.
- Developer must be registered as a business.
Requirements
Developers participating in this program must comply with the following requirements:
- Must be a registered business.
- Only offer the alternative billing system to users in EEA countries.
- Meet appropriate user protection requirements.
- Only offer alternative billing systems within the app.
- Comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) (if handling credit and debit card data).
- Provide customer support for users of the alternative billing system (including any products sold using the alternative billing system), and the alternative billing system must provide a process to dispute unauthorized transactions.
- Pay Google the applicable service fees. When a consumer purchases through an alternative billing system without user choice, the standard service fee the developer pays will be reduced by 3%.
- Integrate the alternative billing APIs, which streamline implementing user experience requirements and reporting.
- Notify us in advance of intended changes to your app enrollment preferences, such as disabling or enabling user choice billing in a particular app or market. For more details on how to submit changes, visit our FAQ.
Please note that eligibility and requirements are subject to change.
Integrating with alternative billing APIs
If you would like to offer alternative billing and will be using the alternative billing APIs from the date of your offering, you must complete the following steps:
- Review the requirements on this page to determine if your app(s) meets the eligibility criteria.
- Complete the billing declaration form, accept the Terms of Service, and complete any onboarding steps required to enroll in the program through Google's support team (for example, set up a payments profile as required).
- Complete the integration of the alternative billing APIs as described in this API integration guide.
- Manage your Play Console alternative billing settings to opt in/out each of your apps, upload payment method logos, and subscription management URLs.
- Report to Google Play all authorized transactions from users in the EEA within 24 hours using alternative billing APIs.
- For any active subscriptions that started while you were offering alternative billing without automation, you will be required to migrate these subscriptions through the ExternalTransactions API prior to reporting the recurring transactions through the API. This one-time migration must be done prior to the March 13, 2024, alternative billing API migration deadline. For more details, visit our FAQ.
If you have any additional questions, you can contact our support team here.