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As you can see here, Apple appstore application sales in Europe are not as profitable for developers.

To talk precisely, if you sell an app:

  • in USA for 3.99 USD, you earn 2.80 USD
  • in Europe for 3.99 EUR, you earn 2.43 EUR

The 70% for developer, 30% for Apple rule somehow does not work, most probably because of some tax rules.

Is there any work around to evade this taxation overhead? Such as moving the company headquarter which is enrolled for developer program to an off-shore tax heaven (such as Bahamas)?

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I believe this is due to VAT, though I'm not sure. – Centurion Games Sep 27 '12 at 12:05

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I don't know for sure, but I think Apple is using their EU subsidary based in Ireland to handle all AppStore proceeds from European countries, so the Irish VAT is applicable to all proceeds (as well as to the margin Apple collects). VAT in Ireland is a whopping 23%, so that explains the lower proceeds compared to US proceeds.

I'd love to see some official information on that because I did quite some research about this when I started selling apps on the AppStore, but as with everything Apple available information is very sparse.

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