US Contactless Card Payments Rose 28-Fold. Still Under 40%

Americans made 43.0 billion contactless card payments in 2024, according to payment statistics published through the Bank for International Settlements. In 2019 they made 1.55 billion.

That is a 27.8-fold rise in five years. It still leaves contactless at 38.8% of in-person card payments in the United States, the second-lowest share among the 10 economies that report the figure.

From under 2% to almost 40%

In 2019, 1.7% of in-person payments with US-issued cards were contactless. The share reached 11.0% in 2021, 19.7% in 2022 and 35.4% in 2023.

Growth slowed in 2024. The number of contactless payments rose 16.8%, after roughly doubling in each of the three previous years, and the share edged up from 35.4% to 38.8%.

That leaves 67.9 billion in-person card payments in 2024 that were not contactless: cards inserted or swiped at the terminal.

Where the US sits

Among the 10 economies with both figures, the median contactless share in 2024 was 79.6%. Spain led at 92.7%, followed by the Netherlands at 88.9%, Italy at 82.9% and Germany at 81.9%.

France, at 67.3%, is the lowest of the European economies in the data. Only Mexico, at 9.8%, is below the United States.

The closest parallel to the US is Turkiye. Its contactless share was 8.6% in 2019, higher than the US but still low. By 2024 it was 77.3%, after a 23.8-fold rise in contactless payments, a multiple close to the US one.

Why this matters

For merchants and acquirers, the US is no longer a market where contactless is optional at the counter. With 43 billion taps a year, a terminal that cannot accept them turns away a large and growing share of card payments.

At the same time, more than 60% of US in-person card payments still use the chip or the stripe. Payment providers serving US merchants have to support both for years to come, and the slowdown in 2024 suggests the remaining shift may take longer than the first.

What this is not

These are counts, not values. The BIS value figures for US contactless payments imply an average tap of about $71 against about $41 for all in-person card payments, which cannot both be right, so this article does not use them.

The data do not separate cards from phones and watches, or transit fares from shop purchases. Indonesia reports a contactless share above 80% as early as 2019, far above any other economy that year, and is shown as published.

Only 10 economies report the series, so the ranking is among those 10, not the world. HaiPay did not contact the BIS or the Federal Reserve.

What to watch

Whether the US share keeps slowing. A second year of growth below 20% would suggest the easy gains are over.

Whether Mexico follows the US path. Its share rose from 1.2% in 2022 to 9.8% in 2024.

And whether the BIS value series is revised. Until it is, US contactless spending cannot be measured from this source.