Meta Platforms and TikTok have won their challenges before the EU General Court against the European Commission’s method for calculating annual supervisory fees under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The court annulled the implementing decisions that set each company’s 2023 levy, holding that the Commission used the wrong legal instrument, and gave regulators 12 months to replace the methodology via a delegated act. The effect of the annulled decisions is maintained during that period, so no repayment is due while a new basis is put in place.
The supervisory fee is intended to fund the Commission’s oversight of “very large online platforms” and “very large online search engines” designated under the DSA. For 2023, the fee was set at 0.05% of each provider’s annual worldwide net income, with the amount influenced by average monthly active users and whether the provider recorded a profit or loss in the preceding financial year. Meta and ByteDance’s TikTok argued that the methodology produced disproportionate results. The General Court agreed on process: the approach should have been adopted in a delegated act rather than through implementing decisions.
In immediate terms, the ruling requires the Commission to recast the fee-calculation framework but does not strike down the principle or quantum of the levy itself. A Commission spokesperson said Brussels saw “no issue with the principle of the fee nor the amount” and characterised the judgment as requiring a procedural correction; the executive now has 12 months to adopt a delegated act formalising the calculation and to issue new implementing decisions.
The DSA entered into force in November 2022 and requires very large services to mitigate systemic risks and illegal content or face fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover. The supervisory fee is designed to cover the Commission’s costs in exercising those tasks. Alongside Meta and TikTok, other designated providers subject to the levy include Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, Google, Microsoft, X, Snapchat and Pinterest.
Meta and TikTok filed their actions in early 2024 (Cases T-55/24 and T-58/24). While the General Court’s judgment focuses on the legal vehicle used to set the methodology, the challenges were lodged amid wider industry concerns over how inputs such as user counts and profit definitions were applied. In June, during the oral hearing, Meta criticised reliance on group-level accounts rather than local subsidiary figures, while TikTok said user-counting methods could inflate its bill and require it to subsidise enforcement costs attributable to other services. Those issues may resurface as the Commission redrafts the framework.
Today’s ruling preserves legal continuity by maintaining the effects of the annulled 2023 fee decisions for a provisional period. In practice, companies will not receive refunds pending the adoption of the delegated act and the issuance of fresh implementing decisions. The court set a 12-month window for that exercise.
The judgment also has implications beyond the two applicants. Several other providers have contested aspects of the DSA fee system, including Google, whose challenge was published by the court registry earlier this year. By requiring the Commission to anchor the methodology in a delegated act, the court signals that the design of the fee must be set in a measure that supplements core elements of the DSA and is subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council. The Commission’s subsequent implementing decisions would then apply that legally robust methodology to individual providers.
Next steps will centre on the delegated act. Under the DSA, supervisory fees are meant to reflect the Commission’s forecast costs of enforcement for the following year, allocated across designated services according to specified criteria. The redrafting process will need to address the court’s procedural finding while providing greater clarity on data sources and definitions for inputs such as active users and profit, an area that drew criticism during the litigation. Until the new act is adopted and applied, the existing 2023 fee determinations stay operative.
The Commission did not indicate whether it would appeal. For now, the outcome amounts to a partial victory for the platforms on legal form rather than on the underlying policy: the supervisory fee remains, but its calculation basis must be recast within a year. How that recalibration distributes costs across the group of designated services—profit-making and loss-making alike—will be the key question for the industry.
