What is the most popular payment method in the Czech Republic?
Cards. Czechs made more than 3.3 billion card payments in 2025, according to the Czech National Bank, mostly with contactless debit cards and phones. Online, cards and wallets also lead, ahead of bank transfers.
In detail
Cards. Czechs made more than 3.3 billion card payments in 2025, according to the Czech National Bank, mostly with contactless debit cards and phones. Online, cards and wallets also lead, ahead of bank transfers.
How people pay in the Czech Republic in 2026
The central bank's CERTIS system has turned instant payments into an everyday habit. They made up 45.5% of interbank transfers in March 2026, against 21% in mid-2022.
Payment by card in the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic has no domestic card scheme, so cards run on Visa and Mastercard. The Czech National Bank counted more than 17.4 million payment cards and about 285,000 POS terminals at the end of 2025. Card payments exceeded 3.3 billion that year, worth almost CZK 2 trillion, and about 95% were made with debit cards. The Czech Banking Card Association reports similar growth: 3.33 billion payments at merchants in 2025, up 11%, of which 618 million were e-commerce payments worth CZK 628 billion, up nearly 20%.
Payment by digital wallet and X-Pay in the Czech Republic
The Czech Banking Card Association counted 1.6 billion mobile and other tokenized payments in 2025, up 23%, worth CZK 985 billion. That is almost half of all card payments at merchants.
More detail in our #PayWorldTour guide Payment methods in Czech Republic.