diff --git a/pandas-stubs/io/formats/style.pyi b/pandas-stubs/io/formats/style.pyi
index dc2b53829..4724726f8 100644
--- a/pandas-stubs/io/formats/style.pyi
+++ b/pandas-stubs/io/formats/style.pyi
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from collections.abc import (
 from typing import (
     Any,
     Literal,
+    Protocol,
     overload,
 )
 
@@ -40,6 +41,16 @@ from pandas.io.formats.style_render import (
     Subset,
 )
 
+class _SeriesFunc(Protocol):
+    def __call__(
+        self, series: Series, /, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any
+    ) -> list | Series: ...
+
+class _DataFrameFunc(Protocol):
+    def __call__(
+        self, series: DataFrame, /, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any
+    ) -> npt.NDArray | DataFrame: ...
+
 class Styler(StylerRenderer):
     def __init__(
         self,
@@ -198,7 +209,7 @@ class Styler(StylerRenderer):
     @overload
     def apply(
         self,
-        func: Callable[[Series], list | Series],
+        func: _SeriesFunc | Callable[[Series], list | Series],
         axis: Axis = ...,
         subset: Subset | None = ...,
         **kwargs: Any,
@@ -206,7 +217,7 @@ class Styler(StylerRenderer):
     @overload
     def apply(
         self,
-        func: Callable[[DataFrame], npt.NDArray | DataFrame],
+        func: _DataFrameFunc | Callable[[DataFrame], npt.NDArray | DataFrame],
         axis: None,
         subset: Subset | None = ...,
         **kwargs: Any,
diff --git a/tests/test_styler.py b/tests/test_styler.py
index 7dd4003ec..42f7830d9 100644
--- a/tests/test_styler.py
+++ b/tests/test_styler.py
@@ -52,6 +52,14 @@ def h(df: DataFrame) -> DataFrame:
 
     check(assert_type(DF.style.apply(h, axis=None), Styler), Styler)
 
+    # GH 919
+    def highlight_max(x: Series[int], /, color: str) -> list[str]:
+        return [f"color: {color}" if val == x.max() else "" for val in x]
+
+    check(
+        assert_type(DF.style.apply(highlight_max, color="red", axis=1), Styler), Styler
+    )
+
 
 def test_apply_index() -> None:
     def f(s: Series) -> npt.NDArray[np.str_]: