POS System Statistics 2026

Since 2023, however, the number of payments made in person and remotely have remained consistent, with an average of 17 payments made remotely (37%) and 30 in person (63%).

Excluding remote payments, cash payments made up around 20% of in-person transactions in 2025.

While debit cards consistently have been the most-preferred payment option for in-person purchases, the share of consumers who most prefer credit cards has increased considerably, reaching 38% in 2025 and now closely trailing debit cards (40%).

In contrast, the share of consumers who reported cash as their most- preferred in-person payment method has declined over time, falling to 16%.

While people who identify cash as their most-preferred method accounted for 31% of total in-person cash payments, the other 70% came from individuals who prefer payment methods other than cash.

Cards' share of noncash payments reached 79 percent in 2024, up from 77 percent in 2021 and 71 percent in 2015.

Debit cards accounted for 64 percent of all card payments in 2024 by number, down from 68 percent in 2021.

In 2022, in-person payments were 63.8 percent of total GP card payments by number. Of those, 87.5 percent involved the use of a chip, 29.1 percent used chip and PIN, a version of "two-factor authentication," and 19.7 percent were contactless.

more than half (52%) of POS payments in the euro area were carried out using cash in 2024. This share has declined from 59% in 2022, 72% in 2019 and 79% in 2016 (Chart 4).

The proportion of card payments increased from 34% in 2022 to 39% in 2024.

In terms of value, cards are the most dominant payment instrument (with a share of 45%, down from 46%), followed by cash (39%, down from 42%) and mobile apps (7%, up from 4%).

In 2024 as in 2022, 55% of consumers prefer paying with cards and other non-cash means in shops, 22% prefer paying with cash and 23% have no clear preference.

According to the study, cash was used for 45 % of all payments. This is 6 percentage points lower than in 2023.

Cashless payments were possible for 86 % of the purchases recorded at physical locations – that is 5 percentage points more than in 2023.

The share of payments made using cards declined from 76 per cent in 2022 to around 73 per cent in 2025 (Graph 1).

Cash use stabilised to around 15 per cent of payments, compared with 13 per cent in the 2022 survey (Table 1).

In 2025, cash was used in 18% of all payments at the point of sale, compared to 21% in 2024 (Chart 8). The value share of cash stood at 10% in 2025, compared to 11% in 2024.

In 2025, credit cards represented 48% of overall purchase volume but 58% of purchase value.

Tap to Pay has become the default way Visa cardholders pay, comprising 84% and 76% of face-to-face transactions globally and in the United States, respectively, in September 2026.

Tap to Phone surpassed 25 million transacting devices across more than 100 markets in fiscal 2026, enabling sellers to accept contactless payments using eligible mobile devices without dedicated payment terminals.

In 2025, 63% of in-person payments were contactless, slightly higher than 61% in 2024 and 60% in 2023 (Chart 9).

Device-based payments accounted for around 40 per cent of card payments, up from 31 per cent in 2022.

In the 2025 CPS, the adoption of mobile wallets (such as Apple Wallet, Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet) continued to increase across all age groups with 43 per cent of consumers using a mobile device to make a contactless payment during the diary week, relative to 35 per cent in 2022 (Graph 7).

Mobile payment methods were used for 10 % of all payments, which is 4 percentage points more than in 2023.

Contactless payments – whether made using a physical card or a mobile device – rose by two per cent to 19.2 billion, representing 39 per cent of all payments.

65 per cent of UK adults were registered for at least one mobile payment service in 2025, up from 57 per cent in 2024.

Mobile wallet adoption varies by age however: 89 per cent of 25–34-year-olds are registered, compared with 29 per cent of over 65s.

Total Locations increased 21% to approximately 189,000.

Added approximately 8,500 net new Locations in third quarter

Gross Payment Volume (GPV) increased 20% to $61.8 billion.

GPV for the full year 2025 increased 23% year over year to $195.1 billion.

Square GPV grew 14% year over year in the third quarter on a reported and constant currency basis to $76.4 billion, reflecting strong GPV growth from new sellers.

As of September, only 16% of our U.S. sellers use monetized software, and we see opportunities to innovate on pricing and packaging to drive software attach higher next year.

Self-onboarding continued to drive strong new customer acquisition while the number of new sellers joining Square through Independent Sales Organization (ISO) partners grew 90% quarter over quarter.

We powered $119 billion in GMV, while continuing to build commerce into every surface, every agent, and increasingly, everywhere,

For the three months ended September 30, 2026, the Shopify Payments penetration rate was 68%, resulting in GMV of $81.4 billion that was facilitated using Shopify Payments.

As of December 31, 2025, we had millions of merchants from more than 175 countries using our platform, geographically dispersed as follows: 44% in the United States, 31% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 16% in Asia Pacific, Australia and China, 5% in Canada and 5% in Latin America.

Lightspeed ended the quarter with total Customer Locations of approximately 146,000.

The number of transacting terminals across the platform reached 838K, up 27% YoY, driving strong processing momentum as in-person volume grew 28% YoY to €175.7 billion. In-person payments now represent 22% of total volume, up from 21% in H1 2025, providing a foundational touchpoint to deepen merchant relationships.

Small Business contributed 5% to Merchant segment revenue growth in 2025, primarily driven by volume growth, including from our Clover POS and business management platform, as well as the expansion of our merchant relationships through value-added services.

38.6% of operators use AI tools.

Only 3.2% are implementing AI projects companywide, while 20% are running small-scale pilots.

More than three-quarters of operators (77.9%) expect technology, automation, data, and AI to be at least moderately critical to their businesses over the next five years.

Operators' top obstacles to adopting or expanding technology are cost (48.8%), business fit and value (43.8%), workforce and expertise gaps (41.3%), and integration challenges (38.8%).

Nearly two-thirds of operators (65%) say technology has a positive impact on the hospitality their restaurants provide.

When it comes to increasing their use of technology, 60% of operators say their restaurants are in the technology mainstream, while nearly 3 in 10 think they're lagging, and only 1 in 10 consider themselves to be at the forefront of technological innovation compared to their peers.

The upshot: Nearly nine-in-ten restaurant operators said they’re experimenting with AI tools and 87% are comfortable with AI, according to Toast's 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Industry survey of 676 US restaurant operators from April 3-20, 2026.

Digging deeper, a plurality of restaurants — 42% — are experimenting with AI via their vendors.

In comparison, businesses in the Retail Trade sector reported current and expected usage lower than the national average: around 14% of businesses currently use AI, and about 17% expect to in the next six months.

Cash usage continued to decline, falling to 3.9 billion payments in 2025, down from 4.3 billion the previous year.

Card payments accounted for 64 per cent of all payments, driven by widespread acceptance, extensive use of contactless, and rising mobile wallet use.

Around 1.4 million people – three per cent of UK adults – mainly use cash for their day-to-day spending.

A majority of consumers (62% in 2024, up from 60% in 2022) consider it important to have cash as a payment option.

Our foundation layer comprises the network infrastructure that enables connections to more than 18 billion cards, bank accounts and digital wallets with more than 400 million seller locations across more than 200 countries and territories.

Gross dollar volume growth of 9%, on a local currency basis, to $10.6 trillion.