How people pay in Italy in 2026
Italy is a two-speed payment market. Cash still settles most small purchases in shops, yet digital payments reached €518 billion in 2025, up 7% in a year, and 45% of household consumption was paid electronically against 38% in cash. Contactless is now the default at the till, and about 14 million Italians paid with a phone or a smartwatch in 2025.
The local layer is thick. Debit cards run on the domestic BANCOMAT scheme, Poste Italiane issues tens of millions of Postepay prepaid cards, Satispay and BANCOMAT Pay compete for mobile payments, and public bills go through pagoPA and CBILL. Online, cards lead, wallets such as PayPal follow, and buy now pay later is growing fast. Across the Alps, our guide to payment methods in France covers the neighboring market.
- €518 billion paid digitally in 2025 (Politecnico di Milano, Innovative Payments Observatory)
- 61% of point-of-sale transactions paid in cash in 2024 (Banca d’Italia, ECB SPACE survey)
- 12.4 billion card payments in 2025 (Banca d’Italia)
- 298.8 million instant credit transfers in 2025 (Banca d’Italia)
Payment by card in Italy
Italians hold plenty of cards: 114.9 million at the end of 2025, of which 67.3 million debit, 33.7 million prepaid and 13.9 million credit cards. They used them for about 12.4 billion payments in 2025, including 2.7 billion remote payments worth €132 billion. Debit dominates. Most Italian debit cards carry the domestic BANCOMAT brand, co-badged with Visa or Mastercard for e-commerce and travel, and prepaid cards such as Postepay play a much larger role than in most of Europe.
In shops, cards are winning share from cash but are not yet the majority: they made 32% of point-of-sale transactions in 2024, against 61% for cash. Contactless is the norm, with €323 billion of in-store contactless payments in 2025, and acceptance keeps widening with 3.6 million POS terminals, including 165,000 software POS on phones. Online, cards are the first choice, with 51% of payments by number. Merchants should route domestic debit correctly and watch interchange fees, which differ between the domestic scheme and the international ones.
Card schemes in Italy
BANCOMAT (formerly PagoBANCOMAT)
Domestic debit scheme
Italy’s domestic debit scheme, run by BANCOMAT S.p.A. and present on most current-account debit cards, usually co-badged with Visa or Mastercard. In 2025 the PagoBANCOMAT and BANCOMAT marks were merged into a single BANCOMAT brand, rolled out gradually by issuing banks.
67.3 million debit cards in circulation in Italy at the end of 2025, all schemes combined, Banca d’Italia
Visa
International card scheme
Visa brands a large share of Italian credit, prepaid and co-badged debit cards and carries most cross-border and e-commerce traffic on them. It is also piloting with BANCOMAT an extension of BANCOMAT Pay to pay abroad, with tests planned from early 2026.
Mastercard
International card scheme
Mastercard is the other main international network in Italy, on credit cards, co-badged debit cards and prepaid programs. It matters most for online checkout and for foreign visitors paying in Italian shops.
Postepay
Prepaid card program
Poste Italiane’s prepaid card family, including Postepay Evolution with an IBAN, is a mainstream way to pay online for young people and for those without a traditional bank card. It runs on international card networks and is managed in the Poste Italiane app.
30.2 million Poste Italiane payment cards (Postepay prepaid and debit) at the end of 2025, Poste Italiane FY-25 results
Payment by cash in Italy
Cash is declining but remains central in Italy. In the ECB’s 2024 survey, 61% of point-of-sale transactions were paid in cash, down from 69% in 2022 and above the 52% euro area average. By value the share is 49%. Cash is strongest for purchases under €50 and for payments between people. Across all consumption, cash still settled 38% of spending in 2025, while a third of Italians say they now carry very little of it.
Cash also reaches the online and bill economy. Shoppers can pay e-commerce orders in cash on delivery, and millions of public and utility bills are paid at post offices and at tabaccherie, Italy’s tobacconist shops, which act as payment points for pagoPA notices and other bills. The withdrawal network is still busy: Italians took out €173.6 billion in cash in the second half of 2025 alone. Merchants targeting older or less banked customers should keep a cash option, such as cash on delivery or payment at a counter.
Cash payment methods in Italy
Cash at the point of sale
Banknotes and coins
Cash remains the most common way to pay in Italian shops, cafés and markets, especially for small amounts.
61% of point-of-sale transactions by number paid in cash in 2024, Banca d’Italia, ECB SPACE survey
Contrassegno
Cash on delivery
Cash on delivery, known as contrassegno, lets shoppers pay the courier when the parcel arrives. Italian merchants still offer it for first purchases and for customers who avoid paying online.
Bollettino postale and pagoPA at the counter
Bill payment at counter
Payment notices for public bodies and many utilities can be paid in cash at post offices and at partner retail points, as the pagoPA fact sheet describes. Many Italians still pay taxes, school fees and fines this way.
Tabaccheria payment networks (Mooney, Lottomatica)
Cash payment network
Networks of tabaccherie and bars run by Mooney and by Lottomatica accept cash for bills, pagoPA notices, phone top-ups and prepaid card reloads. pagoPA lists Sisal and Lottomatica points of sale among its payment channels.
Payment by bank transfer in Italy
The bonifico, or credit transfer, is everywhere in Italy for rent, invoices and large purchases, but it plays a small role at the online checkout: credit transfers made only 3% of online payments by number in 2024. The change in 2025 came from instant payments. Italians sent 298.8 million instant transfers in 2025, worth €241.6 billion, or 23.6% of all SEPA credit transfers. In a 2025 survey, 69% of Italians had used an instant transfer and 70% preferred it to a standard one.
Italy also has its own bank-based rails for collections. MyBank turns online banking into a checkout method, CBILL lets people pay bills from home banking, and pagoPA is the national platform for payments to public bodies. Wero is not live in Italy: BANCOMAT is instead connecting its mobile service with Bizum, MB WAY, Vipps MobilePay and EPI through the European Network for Payments, starting with cross-border transfers. Our real-time payments explorer compares instant payment systems country by country.
Bank transfer methods in Italy
Bonifico istantaneo (SEPA Instant)
Instant credit transfer
The instant SEPA transfer, available in all Italian banking apps, settles in seconds, 24/7. It is used for person-to-person payments, deposits and high-value purchases, and increasingly replaces the standard transfer.
298.8 million instant transfers worth €241.6 billion in 2025, Banca d’Italia
Bonifico SEPA
Credit transfer
The standard SEPA transfer remains the default for invoices, rent and business-to-business payments, and some merchants still accept it for prepayment of orders.
MyBank
Pay by bank
An Italian-born online banking payment method, operated by PRETA, that redirects the shopper to their bank to authorize a SEPA transfer. It is strong in business payments and is available on pagoPA checkout and the IO app.
About €10 billion of business-to-business payments and €252 million of consumer payments in 2024, MyBank
CBILL
Bill payment service
A bank-built service in home and mobile banking to pay bills from public and private billers. It is integrated with pagoPA, so public payment notices can be paid through it.
pagoPA
Public payments platform
The national platform for paying public bodies, from car tax to school fees and medical tickets. Payers choose their channel: bank apps, cards, wallets, post offices or retail points. It passed one billion transactions since 2016 by the end of 2023.
Payment by installment and BNPL in Italy
Italy has a long tradition of installment payments, sold in stores by consumer credit companies such as Findomestic, Agos and Compass. Buy now pay later has added a digital layer on top. The market reached €9.9 billion in 2025, up 45% in a year, with online BNPL up 50%. Use is spreading but still concerns a minority: 17% of Italians knew and used BNPL in 2025.
According to Compass, BNPL counted over 42 million transactions in 2025, about 5% of e-commerce transactions, with Millennials and Gen Z behind two thirds of requests and fashion as the leading category. The offer splits in two: interest-free pay in 3 or 4 from Scalapay, Klarna and PayPal for small baskets, and longer installment plans for higher tickets. The revised EU Consumer Credit Directive brings most BNPL under consumer credit rules from late 2026, which will add credit checks and disclosures to the checkout.
Installment and BNPL providers in Italy
Scalapay
BNPL
The Milan-founded BNPL provider lets shoppers pay in 3 or 4 interest-free installments online and in stores, and is a common sight on Italian fashion and beauty sites.
Over 11 million users and more than 10,000 partner brands across Southern Europe in 2025, European Investment Bank
HeyLight (Compass)
BNPL and installments
The BNPL brand of Compass, Mediobanca’s consumer credit arm, offers installments of up to €5,000 over 24 months, charged to a card or a bank account.
3,000 e-commerce sites and about 40,000 points of sale in Italy in 2026, Compass
PayPal Paga in 3 rate
Wallet BNPL
PayPal’s interest-free pay in 3 for purchases between €20 and €3,000, shown inside the PayPal checkout without extra integration for merchants already accepting PayPal.
Klarna
BNPL
The Swedish BNPL provider offers interest-free installments to Italian shoppers, mostly at international fashion and electronics retailers.
Findomestic
Consumer installments
The BNP Paribas consumer credit bank finances purchases in installments through a large network of retail partners, online and in store.
€10.5 billion of new credit in 2025 and a market share of about 17%, ItaliaOggi
Agos
Consumer installments
One of Italy’s largest consumer credit companies, Agos offers installment plans at the point of sale for furniture, electronics and cars, as well as online.
Payment by digital wallet and X-Pay in Italy
Mobile payment is catching up quickly in Italy. About 14 million Italians paid with a smartphone or wearable in 2025, up from nearly 10 million a year earlier. Banca d’Italia counted 635.5 million mobile contactless payments in the fourth quarter of 2025, about one in four card payments at the point of sale, and nearly half of remote card payments were made on a phone. At the end of 2025, 29.4 million Italian cards were digitized in a wallet.
In stores, X-Pay wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Wallet carry most of this growth, on top of contactless cards. Online, e-payment solutions made 28% of online payments in 2024, led by PayPal. Italy also has two strong local wallets: Satispay, linked to the user’s bank account, and BANCOMAT Pay, built into banking apps. Merchants selling to Italians usually offer PayPal and at least one of the two local wallets.
Digital wallets and X-Pay in Italy
Satispay
Mobile wallet
The Italian mobile payment app, linked to the user’s IBAN, is accepted in shops, bars and online, and also offers transfers between friends, meal vouchers and a pay in 3 option.
6.5 million users and over 450,000 partner businesses in June 2026, Satispay
BANCOMAT Pay
Bank wallet
The domestic scheme’s mobile service, built into the apps of participating banks and the BANCOMAT app, for person-to-person transfers, QR payments in store, online checkout and pagoPA. It already sends money to Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Greece.
PayPal
E-wallet
The most used digital wallet for online shopping in Italy, trusted for marketplace and cross-border purchases and also usable for pagoPA payments.
Apple Pay
X-Pay
Supported by most Italian card issuers, Apple Pay drives contactless payments with iPhone and Apple Watch and is common at online checkout on iOS.
+36% growth in Nexi cards stored in Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay in 2024, Nexi
Google Pay
X-Pay
The default wallet on Android phones, widely supported by Italian banks for in-store contactless payments and for one-tap online checkout.
Samsung Wallet
X-Pay
Samsung’s wallet, formerly Samsung Pay, lets Galaxy users pay contactless with tokenized cards. On the acceptance side, Italian merchants can also take wallet payments on a phone, with solutions such as Nexi SoftPOS.
Payments in Italy: FAQ
What is the most used payment method in Italy?
At the counter, cash still leads, with 61% of point-of-sale transactions in 2024. By value, though, digital payments now dominate: they reached €518 billion in 2025 and covered 45% of household consumption. Cards, mostly BANCOMAT co-badged debit cards, are the main cashless method.
How do Italians pay online?
Cards come first, with 51% of online payments by number in 2024, followed by e-payment solutions such as PayPal with 28%. Credit transfers weigh only 3%, while BNPL and local wallets such as Satispay and BANCOMAT Pay are growing.
What is the difference between Satispay and BANCOMAT Pay?
Satispay is an independent app linked to the user’s bank account, with 6.5 million users in 2026. BANCOMAT Pay is the mobile service of the domestic debit scheme, built into the apps of participating banks. Both handle payments in store, online and between people.
How big is buy now pay later in Italy?
BNPL reached €9.9 billion in 2025, up 45% from 2024. Scalapay, Klarna, PayPal Paga in 3 rate and HeyLight are the main names, and consumer credit banks such as Findomestic and Agos cover larger installment purchases.
Accept local payments in Italy with NORBr
In Italy, Nexi dominates card and BANCOMAT acceptance, while Axerve and Axepta bundle cards, BANCOMAT Pay, MyBank and PayPal. A PSP, PayFac, ISO or ISV should check BANCOMAT acquiring, BANCOMAT Pay, MyBank, Satispay and local settlement.
With NORBr, you can connect any acquirer, PSP or local provider that offers co-badged BANCOMAT debit cards, Postepay, Satispay, BANCOMAT Pay, MyBank and BNPL such as Scalapay. Some are already in our connector catalog; Mapper™ gets the others live in days, and Smart Checkout shows each shopper the right methods. Explore the other #PayWorldTour guides.
Local payment providers in Italy
Nexi
Acquirer
Milan-based European PayTech and Italy's main merchant acquirer, serving small shops up to large retailers and e-commerce sites through its own network and partner banks; in Poland it also owns Przelewy24.
Covers: Cards, BANCOMAT debit, BANCOMAT Pay, MyBank, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Wallet
Axerve
Payment gateway
Payment company of the Banca Sella group, offering online gateway and in-store acceptance to Italian merchants of all sizes.
Covers: Cards, BANCOMAT debit, BANCOMAT Pay, MyBank, PayPal, Satispay, Apple Pay, Google Pay
Axepta Italy
Acquirer
Merchant acquiring business linked to BNL BNP Paribas, providing POS terminals and an e-commerce gateway to Italian merchants.
Covers: Cards, BANCOMAT debit, BANCOMAT Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay
Scalapay
BNPL provider
Milan-founded buy now, pay later provider that lets Italian shoppers split purchases into installments, online and in store, with fashion and beauty as core verticals.
Covers: Scalapay Pay in 3, Pay in 4, Pay later
