UAE online and in-app payments reach 55% of domestic volume as delivery use nears 30%
Remote card payments in the UAE have climbed 20 percentage points since 2019, with food delivery participation rising from about 2% of cards to nearly 30%.
Online and in-app transactions accounted for 55 percent of domestic payment volume in the UAE in 2026, up from 35 percent in 2019. That is a 20 percentage point shift in seven years, measured from anonymised card data across six markets.
The UAE now sits level with the U.K., which also reached 55 percent but started from 51 percent in 2019. The U.S. remains ahead at 58 percent, up from 48 percent. Every market studied moved in the same direction.
- Australia: 41 percent to 44 percent
- Brazil: 17 percent to 26 percent
- Poland: 10 percent to 24 percent
Visa calls the pattern the couch economy. The phrase describes spending that happens through a screen rather than a shop counter: ordering meals, buying groceries, paying for subscriptions, arranging household services. The company argues the shift is not simply about people staying home. It is about expectations that a purchase should take seconds and slot into a daily routine.
Frequency data points the same way. In 2018, 4.5 percent of active UAE cards made ten or more online or in-app payments a month. By 2026, 25.7 percent did, a 5.7-fold increase that leaves the country just ahead of the U.S. at 25.4 percent and just behind the U.K. at 27.8 percent. Australia stood at 23.5 percent, Poland at 8.6 percent and Brazil at 8.1 percent, the last two from low bases.
Stored payment credentials, familiarity with apps and less friction at checkout all push in the same direction, the research finds. Work that once required a trip, from groceries to bookings to restocking, now often takes a few taps.
Delivery moves from treat to habit
Food delivery shows the sharpest change. The share of UAE-issued cards active on delivery apps rose from about 2 percent in 2018 to nearly 30 percent in 2026. Growth has come mostly from ordinary spenders rather than heavy ones. Everyday spenders account for roughly 23 percentage points of total participation, mid-level spenders about 5 points and high spenders around 2 points.
Participation reached about 29 percent in 2024, dipped slightly in 2025 and returned to roughly 30 percent this year. Visa reads that as delivery moving from a premium or occasional convenience into routine household spending, helped by wider restaurant choice, subscription-based loyalty programmes, lower delivery costs and competition between platforms.
Mohamed Bardastani, Visa's principal economist for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said consumer expectations are now doing as much work as the technology.
“While technology has helped accelerate this trend, our research suggests that these expectations are increasingly shaping how consumers spend.”
For merchants, the practical consequences are app visibility, a simple checkout, dependable fulfilment and loyalty mechanics built for repeat use rather than one-off campaigns.
Streaming holds its lead over nights out
Entertainment follows the same shape. In all six markets, the share of cards tied to streaming and pay-TV subscriptions stayed above the share used for cinemas and concerts after pandemic restrictions lifted. The UAE shows the same gap.
Pet spending offers another marker. About 2 percent of UAE domestic cards carried regular pet-related purchases in 2026, roughly a percentage point above 2019, using recurring spend at pet merchants as a proxy for ownership.
The study draws on anonymised transaction data from Australia, Brazil, Poland, the UAE, the U.K. and the U.S. Domestic payment volume means spending on domestically issued cards at domestic merchants, and covers credit, debit and prepaid transactions processed over the network unless stated otherwise.
