A company filing that listed the iPhone manufacturer’s worldwide tax obligations country-by-country showed that Apple paid Ireland $17.1 billion in taxes last year, or around 40% of its total global taxes.
Apple said that the sum paid to Ireland was “significantly higher” than income taxes since it included €13 billion ($15.18 billion) in back taxes that the top court of the European Union ordered it to pay in 2024.
For eight years, Ireland fought the EU back-tax bill with Apple in an effort to protect its status as the preferred home for American multinational corporations in Europe and the billions of euros in direct and indirect taxes they generate annually.
In 2016, Margrethe Vestager, the competition chief of the European Commission at the time, accused Ireland of unjustly diverting investment away from other nations by giving Apple illegal tax perks.
During the fiscal year that concluded in September 2025, Apple paid $43.2 billion in income taxes globally.
