Card payments in Spain

How people pay

Spain pays in cash more than you would guess from the terraces. In the Banco de España's 2025 study, 57% of people still named cash as their main way to pay in physical shops. That was down on the year before. Cards came second, used by 27% of people, followed by mobile devices at 15%.

The shift is real, though, and it is not mainly about cards. Between individuals, the bank's survey says Bizum is gaining ground as cash retreats. Bizum says 30.6 million people used it in 2025, at 3.4 million payments a day on average.

The Banco de España's payment statistics for the second half of 2025, published on 23 July 2026, show the other side. Card payments were 65.9% of the 10,369 million non-cash operations. Contactless was 95.6% of in-person card payments by number. Remote card payments were 19.1% of card payments by number and 30% by value, and the average card payment was 32.1 euros, against 39 euros in the euro area.

The cash study is a survey of people, not a count of every transaction. It tells you how people say they pay, which is exactly what you need to know before you decide what to accept.

Cards and the domestic scheme

The rules that bind a card payment in Spain are largely European ones.

The EU interchange rules come first. They cap interchange on consumer cards at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit. The caps apply in the EU and, through the EEA Agreement, also in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. They do not cover commercial cards, three-party schemes or cash withdrawals. On a co-badged card, the payee may set a priority brand on its terminal but cannot stop the customer from overriding it (Article 8(6)). Your acquirer should be able to say how your terminal handles that.

Beyond cards

Bizum is the method every Spanish customer knows. It began between friends, and it reached online shops. Bizum lists 120,000 online merchants, and online payments grew 82.1% in 2025 to 105.6 million, with a value of 5.4 billion euros.

In person it is new. The Banco de España's consumer site explained on 21 May 2026 that you can now pay in a shop by holding your phone near the card terminal. The money moves from the customer's account to the merchant's, with no card and no PIN. Both the bank and the shop must support it, and the customer pays through the bank's app or the Bizum Pay app. Bizum describes the rollout as gradual, bank by bank and shop by shop.

Bizum is also starting to cross borders. Through the EuroPA initiative it can interoperate with Italy's BANCOMAT Pay and Portugal's MB WAY, and Bizum counted more than 69,400 cross-border operations in 2025, worth over 5.7 million euros. It is a person-to-person link, not a way to take payments in your shop.

The Banco de España tells consumers that Bizum is offered by financial institutions with high security and privacy standards, and still advises them to take precautions. The same advice applies to you: confirm in person that the payment on your phone is the one the customer just made.

SEPA Instant is an obligation for euro-area banks now: they had to receive instant transfers from 9 January 2025 and send them from 9 October 2025.

Rules a merchant must know

Cash has a ceiling. Under Spanish law, an operation in which one party acts as a business or professional cannot be paid in cash when the amount is 1,000 euros or more, or the foreign-currency equivalent. The limit is 10,000 euros when the payer is an individual who proves they have no tax domicile in Spain and is not acting as a business. The rule is Article 7 of Ley 7/2012. It is a serious infringement with a fine of 25% of the cash amount, and the payer and the recipient are jointly liable, so the shop that takes the cash is fined too. The fine drops by 50% if certain conditions are met, and the first party to report the payment to the Agencia Tributaria within three months, giving the amount and the other party's identity, is not sanctioned. Splitting one sale into pieces does not help, because the law adds the pieces together.

Bizum depends on the bank. There is no single scheme sign-up for in-person Bizum. The customer's bank and yours both have to support it. Ask your bank in writing whether your current terminal can take it.

Co-badged cards give the customer the last word. You may set a priority brand on your terminal. You may not block the customer from choosing another one.

Getting paid

The customer's authorisation is immediate. The settlement and payout follow the contract with your bank or acquirer, usually in working days. Nothing in Spanish law fixes one number for everyone, so get yours in writing.

Two Spanish facts shape the conversation. The average card payment was 32.1 euros in the second half of 2025, so ask what you pay per transaction as well as in percent, because on a coffee the fixed part is what you notice. And in-person Bizum moves money from the customer's account to yours with no card involved, so ask your bank when it is credited and where it appears in your report. Keep those payments apart from card payouts when you reconcile.

What I'd tell a merchant here

Ask your bank about in-person Bizum before you buy a new terminal. The answer may be that your current one is enough.

Do not take a large sale in cash. The law has a number, and it is 1,000 euros.

Keep cash for the customers who want it. Over half of Spain does.