US tech companies lobby more frequently and at greater cost in Brussels than European rivals

American technology companies spend considerably more on political influence in Brussels than their European counterparts, and they also meet more frequently with senior EU officials. This emerges from analyses of the EU transparency register by Corporate Europe Observatory, LobbyControl and the Financial Times.

The digital sector as a whole spent €151 million annually on European policy influence, an increase of more than 33 percent compared with 2023, when the figure stood at €113 million. Compared with 2021, that represents a rise of nearly 56 percent. The ten largest digital companies together spend approximately €49 million, more than the ten biggest players in the pharmaceutical, financial and automotive industries combined.

Behind those headline figures lie significant differences between individual companies. Meta topped the rankings at €10 million per year, followed by Amazon (€9–10 million), Apple (€8–9 million), Microsoft (€7 million) and Google (€4.5–5.5 million). In the period from May 2025 to May 2026, total lobbying expenditure by the tech sector in Brussels amounted to €73 million, according to the researchers' records.

Twice as many meetings per company as European rivals

Expenditure is one measure; access to policymakers is another. Between 2025 and September 2026, American companies averaged 5.5 meetings with the European Commission per registered company, compared with 2.4 for European companies, more than twice as many.

Counting from the European elections of June 2024, Google held 302 meetings with senior EU officials, Apple 257 and Amazon 239. In the first half of 2025, representatives of tech companies registered 146 meetings with the Commission and 232 with Members of the European Parliament. Amazon was the most active during that period with 43 meetings, followed by Microsoft (36), Google (35), Apple (29) and Meta (27).

The number of lobbyists also grew. From 699 full-time digital lobbyists in 2023, the figure rose to 890. Of these, 437 hold an access badge for the European Parliament. Lobby group DigitalEurope, which represents many American tech corporations, also substantially increased its lobbying budget, although the analyses do not publish precise figures for this group separately.

AI dominates the lobbying agenda

Artificial intelligence was the central topic in meetings with the Commission: 40 percent of all registered meetings concerned this subject. Lobbying activities also focused on the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and privacy legislation.

One concrete outcome highlighted by the analyses is the Digital Omnibus. The European Commission proposed this package on 19 November 2025; it entered into force on 27 July 2026. The Digital Omnibus amends, among other things, the EU AI Act. Based on their analysis, Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl argue that the content of this package reflects the preferences of large tech corporations regarding the shaping of AI rules, while noting that this is an interpretation of the available data, not proven causality.

OpenAI, NVIDIA, JPMorgan Chase and Anthropic are also mentioned in the analyses as active participants in Brussels discussions, although detailed expenditure figures for these parties are not available in the sources consulted.

What this means for the European AI and startup scene

The figures show that the parties with the largest lobbying budgets and the most contact moments are predominantly based outside Europe. For European founders, investors and policymakers, this is a relevant fact: the rules under which they operate, such as the precise implementation of the AI Act or the amendments introduced via the Digital Omnibus, are shaped in an environment where parties with diverging interests are actively present. European tech companies and industry associations are represented in Brussels, but the available data points to a considerable difference in scale and frequency of access. Whether and how that difference feeds through into concrete legislation is a question for policymakers and researchers to examine further.