How The Cashlessy Index 2026 works
The Cashlessy Index ranks every country on one question: how easily can a visitor get by without cash?Each country gets a score from 0 to 100 and a rank out of 197.
What we measure
We measure the visitor's experience, not how cashless the country is for residents. A country can be almost cashless for locals and still cash only for travellers, for example when sanctions block foreign cards or when every payment goes through a local app that needs a local bank account.
Tools that visitors can actually use count in a country's favour. If a traveller can download an app, link their own card and pay like a local (as with Alipay in China or M-Pesa in Kenya), that country scores as well as one where cards work.
The four pillars
Card acceptance
Will a foreign Visa or Mastercard work, and where?
Accepted almost everywhere · Widely accepted · Cities and tourist areas · Hotels and a few big businesses · Rarely or never
Cash needed
How often will a visitor have to pay in cash?
Rarely needed · Carry a little · Needed daily · Bring plenty
Paying by phone
Can a visitor tap to pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay, or download a local app that works without a local bank account?
Pay by phone · In some places · Little to none
ATM costs
When you do need cash, what does it cost to get it?
Fee-free ATMs are easy to find · Some ATMs are fee-free · Expect a fee at every ATM
Score bands
Countries with the same score share a rank.
Coverage
All 193 United Nations member states, plus Taiwan, Kosovo, Hong Kong and Macao: 197 in total. Hong Kong and Macao are ranked separately from China because they have their own currencies, banks and ways of paying.
Sources and verification
We start from primary sources: official travel advice (UK Foreign Office, US State Department, Australia's Smartraveller) for card blocks and sanctions, central bank and Bank for International Settlements payment statistics, banks' own fee pages for ATM charges, and the operators of payment apps. We use recent traveller reports only when several agree.
Scores in the 2026 edition are editorial assessments across the four pillars. Country pages list their sources and show when they were last checked. So far 36 of 197 have been checked against sources; the rest are being checked now.
Editions and updates
We publish a new edition of the index every year. Between editions we correct errors and update pages when payment rules change, such as new fees or a country's cards being blocked. This edition was last reviewed in September 2026.
Use the data
The full index is free to use under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Cashlessy. Download the 2026 data as CSV.
Cite this index
Cashlessy (2026). The Cashlessy Index 2026. https://cashlessy.com/