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You can publish a Windows or macOS game on the Epic Games Store through the Epic Developer Portal, without using Unreal Engine. The core path is to create an organization and product, prepare a store page and build, push your product from Dev to Stage for review, and push it to Live after approval. Epic’s current standard commercial terms give developers 100% of net revenue on the first $1 million per product per calendar year from Epic-processed sales, then the standard 88%/12% split. The optional Epic First Run program offers a different trade: six months of exclusivity on third-party PC storefronts for 100% of net revenue during that window.
What do you need before publishing a game on the Epic Games Store?
Start with a finished or near-finished product plan, a person authorized to accept Epic’s agreements, and the information needed to set up payouts and taxes. Publishing is managed in the Epic Developer Portal; an individual must be at least 18 or the legal age of majority in their jurisdiction to enter the Distribution Agreement.
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- An Epic account and organization: You create an organization in the portal, then create a product with a name and short description. The product name determines its store URL, so choose it carefully.
- Business and payout details: Prepare bank details and tax information. Epic’s onboarding documentation estimates that the initial organization and product setup takes about five minutes; the admin and payout portion can take up to 10 business days, depending on location.
- A platform-ready game: In the Developer Portal, “PC” means Windows. macOS is listed separately. Epic’s current third-party publishing guidance does not provide a Linux launcher path, so do not assume that a Linux build can be distributed through the Epic Games Store.
- Store-page assets and accurate product information: Your executable, features, ratings, screenshots, and descriptions must correspond to the product users will receive.
- A decision about exclusivity: Epic First Run is optional. You do not need to join it to publish on the store.
Epic says the store reaches more than 295 million users across 187 countries and supports 16 languages; it also lists more than 80 payment methods and 43 regional currencies. Those are Epic’s 2026 figures for its distribution offering, not a guarantee of the audience or sales a particular game will reach.
How do you publish a game on the Epic Games Store?
The process uses three product sandboxes: Dev for configuration, Stage for testing and review, and Live for the public store listing. A Coming Soon page can be reviewed and published before the game has a binary, letting you establish a product presence while development continues.
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1. Create an organization and product
- Sign in to the Epic Developer Portal and create an Epic Games account if needed.
- Create an organization, then use Create Product to enter the game’s name and short description.
- Open the product’s Epic Games Store section and review the Epic Games Store Distribution Agreement. The Email Sharing Rider and Epic Games Store Achievements agreements are recommended where relevant.
- Complete the admin and payout onboarding when prompted. Tax onboarding requires the appropriate tax form—W-9 for US developers or W-8BEN for non-US developers—along with bank and other tax information.
Check the submission-fee question before proceeding. Epic’s public distribution materials and a June 2026 indie-publishing guide describe self-publishing as free, while a current Developer Portal walkthrough from Deskifier lists a $100 per-game submission fee. The public information conflicts, so the fee is not established as a confirmed current official charge. Check the amount displayed in your own portal before committing or budgeting around it.
2. Set up the product home page
In Dev, configure the store entities that form the product listing: Store Settings, the Base Product Offer and its dates, the Home Page, and localization if you need it. Store Settings include distribution regions and ratings. An IARC rating can be completed in the portal at no cost; Epic recommends it for reach, but does not require it. If you already have a rating from ESRB, PEGI, ClassInd, USK, or another ratings body, follow that authority’s rules for page content and provide accurate rating information.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsPrepare the page text and media so they describe the product as it exists, not a future version or an unannounced feature set. Store-page localization is available at no cost on request, historically through a Developer Portal support ticket; localized media is optional. If the game’s release date is not known, a Coming Soon offer can be submitted without offer dates.
3. Push the page to Stage and request review
- In Dev, move the relevant entities from draft to Ready for Stage, then choose Push to Stage.
- If you are publishing only a Coming Soon page, do not include Artifact data, which is associated with builds.
- Check the staged product, then choose Submit to Review. You can rescind a submission only before the review begins.
- Wait for the store team’s decision. Epic’s developer documentation says a Coming Soon or product-page submission might take two or more days; that is not a guaranteed review deadline for every submission.
- Once approved and marked Ready for Live, use Push to Live to make the page public.
A live product needs store settings and a home page, plus offer dates for a base product offer when applicable. A Coming Soon offer with an unknown release date does not need offer dates. A shipped game also needs an artifact containing its active build. Early Access PC products, including Windows and macOS releases, must have an FAQ page.
4. Finalize the offer, build, and release
Create the Base Game Offer, complete the page, attach the build to an artifact, and verify the platform assignments. After the product passes review, push it to Live, set its price and release dates, and choose whether to enable features such as wishlists, achievements, preload, or promotions. Epic’s Unreal Fest Orlando 2025 self-publishing session is a visual walk-through of the broad workflow, but portal labels and requirements should be checked against the current developer documentation.
How do you upload a game build with BuildPatch Tool?
Epic distributes game binaries with BuildPatch Tool (BPT), a command-line packager that also has a graphical front end called BuildPatch Tool Interface in recent downloads. The Developer Portal’s Artifacts and Binaries area provides the tool. Current instructions reference BPT 1.8.7; the GUI is documented for version 1.7.3.1 and later.
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Prepare the artifact and credentials
You need the product’s BPT credentials and the identifiers and build settings that tell the tool what to upload and how the launcher should start the game. The required inputs include:
- Client ID and Client Secret, found under Product Settings → BPT credentials. The secret is organization-scoped, so protect it accordingly.
- OrganizationId, ProductId, and ArtifactId.
- BuildRoot, CloudDir, and BuildVersion.
- AppLaunch and AppArgs, which identify the executable and any launch arguments.
Upload, activate, and assign the build
- Download BPT from the Developer Portal and prepare the build files in the directory you intend to package.
- Enter the credentials, product and artifact identifiers, build paths, version, and launch configuration in the CLI or GUI.
- Run the upload and check that the build appears under the intended artifact.
- Set the uploaded binary active on that artifact and assign it to the correct platform. Uploading alone does not make a binary the active release.
- Test the staged product before submitting it for review, and confirm that the selected build and launch settings match the store-page description.
BPT chunks builds and diffs subsequent uploads against the previous upload, which supports incremental patching. Epic behavior documented by Deskifier says inactive binaries left for more than seven days are deleted, so do not treat an unactivated upload as permanent storage.
If an offer has preload enabled, every binary in the product must be encrypted before you push the product to Live. Check encryption across the whole product rather than only the current platform’s build.
What content and technical requirements can block a release?
Epic can reject or remove a product that violates its rules, fails to function as described, or does not meet the store’s quality expectations. Review the content, multiplayer behavior, achievement parity, and update obligations before you submit.
Functionality, quality, and accurate claims
The game must download, install, launch, and function consistently with its store assets and descriptions. Do not present a future iteration as the product currently for sale or hide functionality that changes its features or rating. Epic says premade assets are acceptable when the game has playability; asset flips, incomplete projects, and tutorial or sample projects are not acceptable. Epic reserves the right to reject a game it considers insufficient in quality or functionality.
Prohibited content and sensitive ratings
The agreement and content guidelines prohibit pornography or content intended for sexual gratification; hateful, racist, or discriminatory content; real-money gambling and cash-out crypto gambling; unlicensed money transmission; scams, malware, and deceptive claims; undisclosed cryptomining; and unnecessary background processes. Adults Only (AO) products are generally not allowed. The stated exception is an AO rating applied solely because of blockchain, NFT, or cryptocurrency elements, and the game must still comply with the blockchain and content rules, including the prohibitions on pornography, gambling, and hateful content. In-product blockchain or cryptocurrency payments require a blockchain rider.
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Multiplayer cross-play and achievements
Every multiplayer PC product must support cross-play with other PC versions distributed through other PC storefronts. You can implement cross-play yourself, use a third-party solution, or use Epic Online Services; Epic does not mandate a particular solution.
If your game has achievements or similar features on Steam, GOG.com, itch.io, or the Microsoft Store, the Epic PC version must have substantially similar achievements. Products onboarded to the publishing tools after March 9, 2023 must enable Epic Games Store achievements when they have achievements on other PC stores.
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Updates and ongoing support
Where you sell the same product on another platform, you must provide Epic with content, bug-fix, compatibility, and performance updates no later than you provide them through other sources, unless doing so would breach the agreement. You are responsible for industry-standard QA and player support; the support contact is displayed on the product page. Epic supports the store itself, but is not obligated to host, market, or keep a listing. After launch, it may remove or suspend a listing after reasonable written notice.
How much does Epic take, and what does Epic First Run change?
For direct sales processed through Epic’s payment service, the standard share is 88% to the developer and 12% to Epic after specified deductions. The current 100% program changes the split on the first $1 million in net revenue per product per year, while Epic First Run offers a separate six-month exclusive window. These terms concern Epic-processed payments; sales through keys or keyless entitlements follow different rules.
Standard share and the annual $1 million threshold
Epic’s standard 88% share is calculated after deductions that can include sales tax, any Support-A-Creator fee you choose to pay, payment-processing fees, chargebacks, user refunds, discounts, and fraud-related charges. Epic retains the 12% Revenue Share plus applicable deductions.
Under Epic’s current program, a developer keeps 100% of net revenue on the first $1 million per product per year from payments processed by Epic, across PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Once a product passes that threshold, the standard 88%/12% model applies. The threshold began on June 1, 2025; from 2026 onward, it resets for each product on January 1. Developers do not need to opt in to this standard program.
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Epic First Run: exclusivity in exchange for six months at 100%
Epic First Run is an opt-in exclusivity program for a new product that has not previously been released on another third-party PC store or included in a third-party PC subscription. It offers 100% net revenue for the first six months, regardless of the amount earned. During that window, you cannot list the game on competing third-party PC stores, though you may sell it on your own site or launcher and through Epic keyless partners such as Humble Store.
Enroll through the product’s Agreements tab or the product enrollment flow in the Developer Portal. Once the six-month window ends, the standard 88%/12% share applies, except that the annual first-$1-million program can still apply. Promise Legal notes that a First Run product terminated for non-compliance reverts to the 88%/12% share.
Unreal Engine royalties and other sales channels
If you are a current Unreal Engine licensee, sales of the product processed using Epic’s payment service owe no Unreal Engine license royalties. That waiver does not cover in-app purchases or products using their own payment processor. Keys, keyless entitlements, and Non-Epic Transactions may still be subject to applicable Unreal royalties.
Epic keys are redeemable codes, while keyless entitlements are API grants used by partners. Those channels are not subject to Epic’s 12% Revenue Share and do not need to be reported to Epic as store revenue, but you handle tax on them and any applicable engine royalties still matter. Support-A-Creator is another optional consideration: a developer may assign creators a percentage of gross sales under the agreement’s calculation. The agreement refers to a 5% subsidy as of October 2022, but that dated figure does not establish the subsidy rate currently in force.
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Epic pays monthly by electronic funds transfer, no later than 45 days after the end of the month in which transactions occurred. The agreement generally sets a $100 payout minimum and says Epic will not withhold earnings for more than a year; pre-purchase proceeds are held until the game launches.
Complete tax onboarding before expecting normal payouts: US developers provide Form W-9, and non-US developers provide Form W-8BEN, together with bank and other required tax details. Missing tax documentation can cause withholding. Epic collects and remits sales tax in the jurisdictions on its Tax Jurisdictions List, but developers remain responsible for income tax and for taxes on keys, keyless entitlements, and Non-Epic Transactions. Wire fees may also be deducted.
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For PC and Mac purchases, Epic’s refund policy allows refunds within 14 days of purchase—or 14 days after release for a pre-purchase—when the product is marked refundable or self-refundable and the account has less than two hours of runtime. Refunds reduce the amount remitted to the developer. The policy also gives mobile products a two-hour refund window; gifts are generally non-refundable to the sender, and Epic account balance itself is non-refundable.
What stays yours after you publish?
You retain ownership of your game. Under the Distribution Agreement, you grant Epic a limited, sublicensable, territory-restricted license to copy, display, distribute, perform, and use the product as needed to operate the store. Store users receive Digital Rights—a license to use the game—not ownership of the underlying game.
If you do not supply your own end-user license agreement, the Epic Games Store EULA applies. That distinction matters: publishing gives Epic the permissions needed to distribute the product, but it does not transfer ownership of the game to Epic.
How should you plan the release timeline?
Plan around onboarding, page review, build readiness, and your own QA rather than relying on an assumed fixed approval deadline. Epic’s estimates provide a starting point, but the admin stage can vary by location and a product-page review might take two or more days.
- Start onboarding early. Create the organization and product, prepare payout and tax information, and check whether the portal presents any submission charge before you budget for it.
- Publish a Coming Soon page when it is useful. It can be reviewed and made Live before a binary exists, which separates store-page preparation from final build readiness.
- Stage the build and test the release configuration. Verify the artifact, active binary, platforms, launch configuration, offer, rating, and store claims before submission.
- Keep update and support capacity after launch. Cross-store update parity, player support, refund adjustments, and later build uploads remain part of publishing rather than one-time launch chores.
The workflow is a good fit if you want access to Epic’s audience and payment infrastructure without building on Unreal Engine, and can meet its cross-play, content, and support requirements. The important trade-offs are curated review, the possibility of a portal fee that public sources describe inconsistently, and the optional exclusivity commitment if you enroll in Epic First Run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an individual developer publish a game, or do I need to form a company?
Epic’s Distribution Agreement explicitly allows an individual to enter the agreement, subject to the age requirement. The portal still asks you to create an organization record and complete the applicable payout and tax onboarding; the available information does not establish that the organization must be an incorporated company.
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Epic’s standard publishing terms do not require exclusivity. A prior third-party PC release does, however, make the product ineligible for the stated Epic First Run condition that the game be new and not previously released on another third-party PC store.
Does Epic guarantee that my game will be promoted or stay listed after release?
No. Epic is not obligated to market or continue hosting a listing, and the agreement allows removal or suspension after reasonable written notice. Plan your own audience-building and retain the ability to communicate with players through channels you control.
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