How many employees does Apple have?

This page is for sellers, analysts and job seekers who need a citable Apple headcount: the latest number, what it measures and how it has changed. Apple publishes one figure a year, in the Human Capital section of its annual Form 10-K, as of the last Saturday in September when its fiscal year ends. Every number below comes from those filings or from state layoff notices, with the date it applies to.

Apple employees by year

Each 10-K says "approximately", rounded to the nearest thousand. The changes are our arithmetic.

Apple's fiscal 2026 ended on September 26, 2026. Its count for that date will appear in the fiscal 2026 10-K. In each of the last eight years Apple filed its 10-K between October 28 and November 5, so expect it in that window.

What "full-time equivalent" means

The 10-K sentence is short: "the Company had approximately 166,000 full-time equivalent employees." A full-time equivalent (FTE) adds up hours rather than people. Two employees working half-time count as one FTE, so the number of individual people on Apple's payroll is higher than 166,000 by an amount Apple doesn't disclose.

What the filing doesn't say matters as much:

• No split by country or function. Apple reports five geographic segments for sales (Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan and Rest of Asia Pacific), but no headcount by segment, country, retail store or corporate team. US-only or retail-only figures you see elsewhere are estimates.
• No contractor count. The 10-K doesn't state whether contractors or temporary workers are included, and gives no separate figure for them. Treat the number as Apple's own employees.
• Contract manufacturing is outside it. The 10-K says "a significant majority of the Company's manufacturing is performed in whole or in part by outsourcing partners," located primarily in China mainland, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. People who assemble Apple products at those partners work for the partners, not Apple.

So when you compare Apple with Amazon or Salesforce, remember that Amazon reports individual full-time and part-time employees and Salesforce reports a straight employee count. An FTE figure will look smaller than a headcount for the same workforce.

What changed and why

Apple's 10-Ks don't explain year-to-year changes in headcount, so the reasons below are limited to what public records show.

• Fiscal 2018 to 2022: steady growth. Headcount rose from 132,000 to 164,000, an increase of 32,000 or 24% in four years.
• Fiscal 2023: the only decline. The count fell by 3,000, to 161,000. Apple's 10-K gives no reason for the drop.
• 2024 and 2026: targeted layoffs in California. California's Employment Development Department (EDD) publishes the notices employers must file under the state's WARN Act before mass layoffs. Apple filed notices covering 121 employees in San Diego (January 11, 2024) and 614 employees across eight Santa Clara addresses (March 28, 2024). In 2026 it filed a closure notice for 57 employees at a site in Escondido (April 23) and layoff notices for 147 employees in Cupertino and Sunnyvale (August 20). These notices cover only California and only layoffs above the law's thresholds, so they are a floor, not a total.

Taken together, the record is of a company holding headcount roughly flat since 2022 while trimming specific teams, rather than one making broad cuts.

Revenue per employee

Apple's fiscal 2025 net sales were $416.2 billion. Divided by the year-end count: $416.2 billion ÷ 166,000 = about $2.51 million per full-time equivalent (our calculation). For fiscal 2024 the same sum ($391.0 billion ÷ 164,000) gives about $2.38 million. Because the denominator is FTEs rather than people, the per-person figure would be somewhat lower.

Where that revenue comes from, from the same 10-K:

By geographic segment, the Americas brought in 42.9% of sales, Europe 26.7%, Greater China 15.5%, Rest of Asia Pacific 8.1% and Japan 6.9%. Apple doesn't report employees by segment, so these splits describe the business, not the workforce. For how this compares with other companies, see highest revenue per employee.

Selling to a company this size

General guidance on how organizations of this size buy, not a description of Apple's internal processes.

• Find the team, not the logo. At 166,000 FTEs, purchases are made by product groups, retail operations, services businesses and corporate functions with their own budgets. Start from the problem you solve and work out which group owns it.
• Expect confidentiality to shape the deal. Large consumer-hardware companies typically ask suppliers to sign strict non-disclosure terms before they share requirements. Have your security and legal answers ready before the first call.
• Plan for procurement and supplier onboarding. A first purchase order at an enterprise of this size usually follows security, legal and procurement review. Put that time in the forecast.
• Map more than one person. Know who signs, who uses and who can block. The economic buyer is rarely the person who first replies.

Finding the right group inside an account this large takes most of the research time. Bebop researches each account and suggests who to talk to and why; check what it finds against the company's filings.

How to check Apple's headcount yourself

1. Open Apple's 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR and pick the latest one.
2. In Part I, Item 1, Business, find the Human Capital heading. The headcount and its date are in the first paragraph.
3. For layoffs at California sites, search the EDD WARN reports for "Apple Inc."
4. Before comparing with another company, check whether each figure is FTEs or people and what date it applies to.

Next step: see how Apple's output per head compares with other large companies in highest revenue per employee.