A new Financial Times report reveals how Apple saved billions in taxes in 2026 by shifting profits through Singapore and Ireland. Here are the details.
Singapore overtakes Ireland as Apple’s biggest
A few days ago, Apple published its annual Form 10-K, as required by the SEC, containing detailed information about its financial performance and operations for its 2026 fiscal year.
Included in the form, as the FT noted, is information regarding how Apple reduced its tax bill by billions of dollars through its operations in Singapore and Ireland.
For years, Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland were the subject of scrutiny, culminating in a 2024 ruling by the EU’s top court that required the company to pay €13 billion in back taxes. Apple completed the payment in 2025.
That came a few years after Apple announced plans to bring most of its $252 billion in overseas cash back to the US, following tax reforms introduced during Donald Trump’s first administration.
Since then, to discourage companies from shifting profits to countries with lower tax rates, more than 130 countries have agreed to introduce a minimum corporate tax rate of 15% for large multinational companies, as part of a 2021 initiative coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Under the agreement, companies that pay less than 15% in a particular country may face additional taxes to make up the difference. The new rules also resulted in an additional $2.5 billion in taxes for Apple in Singapore in 2026, according to the company’s SEC filing.
Ireland adopted the new rules in 2024, followed by Singapore in 2025.
Back to the FT’s report, it notes that new US accounting rules now require publicly traded companies to disclose when their taxes on overseas profits differ significantly from the 21% US federal corporate tax rate.
These new requirements revealed that Apple saved $2.7 billion in taxes through Singapore in 2026, surpassing the $2.6 billion it saved through Ireland.
If Apple had been taxed on all of its global profits in 2026 at the US federal rate, it would have incurred a total bill of $33bn — demonstrating the scale of the $5bn tax reduction it received from booking profits in Ireland and Singapore. The company incurred corporation taxes totalling $27bn this year.
The FT also noted that Apple’s effective tax rate in Singapore fluctuated around 10% between 2023 and 2025, but is expected to approach 15% under the new rules. Singapore’s standard corporate tax rate is 17%.
To read the FT’s original report, follow this link.
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