Apple Says App Store Blocked $2.2 Billion in Fraudulent Transactions in 2025

Apple's App Store prevented more than $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2025, according to the company's annual fraud prevention report published today.

The figure is up from the $2 billion Apple reported for 2024, and brings the company's six year running total of blocked fraudulent transactions to more than $11.2 billion. The report arrives roughly three weeks before Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off on June 8.

Apple credits the results to a combination of human review and machine learning, calling the approach a "multilayered" defense system that has had to keep pace with bad actors increasingly using AI tools and bot networks to attack the platform.

Payment Fraud

Beyond the $2.2 billion in blocked transactions, Apple says it stopped more than 5.4 million stolen credit cards from being used to make purchases on the App Store in 2025. The company also banned nearly 2 million user accounts from transacting on the platform again.

More than 680,000 apps currently use Apple's payment technologies, including Apple Pay and StoreKit. Apple says those payment methods are protected by what it describes as industry leading encryption.

Account Fraud

Apple's systems rejected 1.1 billion fraudulent customer account creations in 2025, blocking them before the accounts could be used. The company also deactivated an additional 40.4 million existing customer accounts for fraud and abuse.

On the developer side, Apple terminated 193,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns last year and rejected more than 138,000 developer enrollments.

Apple also detected and blocked 28,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts in 2025. According to the company, those storefronts host malware, pornography apps, gambling apps, and pirated versions of legitimate App Store apps.

In the last month alone, Apple says it prevented 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved alternative app marketplaces.

App Review

Apple's App Review team evaluated more than 9.1 million app submissions in 2025 and welcomed more than 306,000 new developers to the platform. The team rejected over 2 million submissions for failing to meet App Store Review Guidelines, including more than 1.2 million new apps and nearly 800,000 app updates.

Apple says the rise in submission volume is being driven by AI development tools, and that its own use of machine learning has helped reviewers keep up. The company specifically called out so-called bait and switch apps, which are submitted as standard games or utilities and then modified after approval to carry out financial fraud. Apple removed nearly 59,000 apps in 2025 for that kind of behavior.

The company also rejected over 22,000 submissions for containing hidden or undocumented features, more than 371,000 for being spam or copycats, and more than 443,000 for privacy violations. A further 2.5 million submissions were blocked from distribution on TestFlight, Apple's prerelease testing service, due to fraud or security concerns.

Discovery Fraud

Apple says it processed more than 1.3 billion ratings and reviews on the App Store in 2025, and blocked close to 195 million of them as fraudulent before they could appear.

The company also blocked nearly 7,800 deceptive apps from showing up in App Store search results and another 11,500 apps from appearing on App Store charts.

Kids Category

In 2025, Apple rejected more than 5,000 apps from appearing in the App Store's Kids category for failing to meet stricter rules around age ratings and in app advertising. The company points to its Declared Age Range API and PermissionKit as tools developers can use to build age appropriate experiences.

Apple also reiterated existing parental controls including Screen Time, Ask to Buy, and the Report a Problem tool.

Reach

According to Apple, the App Store now welcomes more than 850 million weekly visitors across 175 storefronts worldwide.

The annual report comes as Apple continues to make the case for its curated App Store model, including in markets where regulation has forced the company to allow alternative app marketplaces. Apple has not commented on whether the 2.9 million blocked installation attempts from illicit sources are linked to those alternative distribution channels.

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