What is the most popular way to pay online in Egypt?

There is no single winner in Egypt. Online merchants have to cover several payment worlds at once, and missing one of them means losing a group of shoppers.

The main methods

• Cards: the domestic Meeza scheme and Visa and Mastercard, with prepaid cards as the largest group.
• Fawry reference codes, paid in cash at kiosks, pharmacies and grocery stores. Fawry processed 2.08 billion transactions in 2025.
• Mobile wallets: 60 million at the end of 2025, led by Vodafone Cash.
• InstaPay, the instant payment network, through payment links and QR codes.
• Installments from consumer finance companies such as valU.
• Cash on delivery, still common for first orders and outside large cities.

Financial inclusion reached 77.6% of adults in December 2025, which explains the fast growth of digital methods, but cash remains present in almost every channel.

What it means for payment operators

In Egypt, local acceptance matters more than any single global brand. Operators serving Egyptian merchants need local providers for Meeza, Fawry, wallets and installments, and must check Central Bank of Egypt approvals. Foreign currency caps on Egyptian cards also make local acquiring important for anyone selling from abroad.