diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst
index ab3316e7fca4c..ea9b06a58be92 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ Other enhancements
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 - :class:`pandas.api.typing.FrozenList` is available for typing the outputs of :attr:`MultiIndex.names`, :attr:`MultiIndex.codes` and :attr:`MultiIndex.levels` (:issue:`58237`)
 - :class:`pandas.api.typing.SASReader` is available for typing the output of :func:`read_sas` (:issue:`55689`)
+- :meth:`DataFrame.apply` accepts Numba as an engine by passing the JIT decorator directly, e.g. ``df.apply(func, engine=numba.jit)`` (:issue:`61458`)
 - :meth:`pandas.api.interchange.from_dataframe` now uses the `PyCapsule Interface <https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/CDataInterface/PyCapsuleInterface.html>`_ if available, only falling back to the Dataframe Interchange Protocol if that fails (:issue:`60739`)
 - Added :meth:`.Styler.to_typst` to write Styler objects to file, buffer or string in Typst format (:issue:`57617`)
 - Added missing :meth:`pandas.Series.info` to API reference (:issue:`60926`)
diff --git a/pandas/core/apply.py b/pandas/core/apply.py
index 2c96f1ef020ac..760fd111f21ce 100644
--- a/pandas/core/apply.py
+++ b/pandas/core/apply.py
@@ -178,6 +178,60 @@ def apply(
         """
 
 
+class NumbaExecutionEngine(BaseExecutionEngine):
+    """
+    Numba-based execution engine for pandas apply and map operations.
+    """
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def map(
+        data: np.ndarray | Series | DataFrame,
+        func,
+        args: tuple,
+        kwargs: dict,
+        decorator: Callable | None,
+        skip_na: bool,
+    ):
+        """
+        Elementwise map for the Numba engine. Currently not supported.
+        """
+        raise NotImplementedError("Numba map is not implemented yet.")
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def apply(
+        data: np.ndarray | Series | DataFrame,
+        func,
+        args: tuple,
+        kwargs: dict,
+        decorator: Callable,
+        axis: int | str,
+    ):
+        """
+        Apply `func` along the given axis using Numba.
+        """
+        engine_kwargs: dict[str, bool] | None = (
+            decorator if isinstance(decorator, dict) else None
+        )
+
+        looper_args, looper_kwargs = prepare_function_arguments(
+            func,
+            args,
+            kwargs,
+            num_required_args=1,
+        )
+        # error: Argument 1 to "__call__" of "_lru_cache_wrapper" has
+        # incompatible type "Callable[..., Any] | str | list[Callable
+        # [..., Any] | str] | dict[Hashable,Callable[..., Any] | str |
+        # list[Callable[..., Any] | str]]"; expected "Hashable"
+        nb_looper = generate_apply_looper(
+            func,
+            **get_jit_arguments(engine_kwargs),
+        )
+        result = nb_looper(data, axis, *looper_args)
+        # If we made the result 2-D, squeeze it back to 1-D
+        return np.squeeze(result)
+
+
 def frame_apply(
     obj: DataFrame,
     func: AggFuncType,
@@ -1094,23 +1148,31 @@ def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
             return wrapper
 
         if engine == "numba":
-            args, kwargs = prepare_function_arguments(
-                self.func,  # type: ignore[arg-type]
-                self.args,
-                self.kwargs,
-                num_required_args=1,
-            )
-            # error: Argument 1 to "__call__" of "_lru_cache_wrapper" has
-            # incompatible type "Callable[..., Any] | str | list[Callable
-            # [..., Any] | str] | dict[Hashable,Callable[..., Any] | str |
-            # list[Callable[..., Any] | str]]"; expected "Hashable"
-            nb_looper = generate_apply_looper(
-                self.func,  # type: ignore[arg-type]
-                **get_jit_arguments(engine_kwargs),
-            )
-            result = nb_looper(self.values, self.axis, *args)
-            # If we made the result 2-D, squeeze it back to 1-D
-            result = np.squeeze(result)
+            try:
+                import numba
+
+                if not hasattr(numba.jit, "__pandas_udf__"):
+                    numba.jit.__pandas_udf__ = NumbaExecutionEngine
+                    result = numba.jit.__pandas_udf__.apply(
+                        self.values,
+                        self.func,
+                        self.args,
+                        self.kwargs,
+                        engine_kwargs,
+                        self.axis,
+                    )
+                else:
+                    raise ImportError
+            except ImportError:
+                engine_obj = NumbaExecutionEngine()
+                result = engine_obj.apply(
+                        self.values,
+                        self.func,
+                        self.args,
+                        self.kwargs,
+                        engine_kwargs,
+                        self.axis,
+                    )
         else:
             result = np.apply_along_axis(
                 wrap_function(self.func),