Card payments in Italy

How people pay

Italy is still a cash country, and it is moving. In the latest ECB survey, for 2024, cash was 61% of point-of-sale transactions by number. The Banca d'Italia says cash stays the main instrument in physical shops, above all for small purchases.

The direction is clear from the 2025 figures the central bank published in August 2026. Cards were about 75% of non-cash transactions, up from 63% in 2018. Contactless reached 88% of card payments at the point of sale. Phones accounted for 24% of transactions at the physical point of sale.

Online, cards are the most used instrument by number and by value. Remote card payments, mostly e-commerce, passed 2.7 billion in 2025 and were about 22% of all card transactions.

The lesson for a shop owner is not that cash is dead. It is that your customers split. The same person pays the bar in coins and the electrician by tap.

Cards and the domestic scheme

BANCOMAT is the domestic debit brand, formerly PagoBANCOMAT on cards, and BANCOMAT Pay is its app. In a press release of 14 July 2025, BANCOMAT S.p.A. said it is unifying the PagoBANCOMAT physical card and the BANCOMAT Pay app under a single identity, BANCOMAT. In Italy people say "bancomat" for the debit card. Many debit cards carry a second brand, a co-badge with an international scheme, and the terminal can ask which one to use. The Banca d'Italia's consumer pages note that the two sides of a co-badged card can have different spending limits.

Under the EU regulation on interchange fees, the payee keeps the right to set a priority brand on its terminal but may not stop the customer from overriding it (Article 8(6)). Ask your acquirer how your terminal handles that choice.

The same regulation caps 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. It is a cap on one layer of the cost, not the price you pay.

Beyond cards

Instant bank transfers are growing fast and are still small. The Banca d'Italia counts about 298 million in 2025. Euro-area banks had to receive them from 9 January 2025 and send them from 9 October 2025 under Regulation (EU) 2024/886, so SEPA Instant is now a normal option at the counter.

BANCOMAT Pay is the brand's mobile app. BANCOMAT S.p.A. says users can pay online and in stores from a smartphone. It is one more thing to know about, not yet a reason to skip a card terminal.

Rules a merchant must know

You must accept cards. Since 30 June 2014, sellers and professionals must accept at least one debit card and one credit card, unless a technical impossibility makes it objectively impossible. The text of the article also mentions electronic-money instruments. Since 30 June 2022 a refusal brings a fixed fine of 30 euros plus 4% of the amount refused, whatever the amount. The Normattiva text, in force as shown in October 2026, is the place to check.

Takings go to the tax authority electronically. Operators who sell at retail must store and transmit daily takings electronically. The duty started on 1 July 2019 for businesses with 2018 turnover above 400,000 euros and on 1 January 2020 for the rest. Since 1 January 2021 a "documento commerciale" can be issued only through a registratore telematico (RT) or a free web procedure from the Agenzia delle Entrate. Operations listed in the Ministerial Decree of 10 May 2019 are exempt from electronic storage, such as taxi rides and newspaper sales.

The POS and the RT must be paired. Since 1 January 2026, each payment terminal has to be linked, online and free of charge, to the RT it works with, through the "Gestione collegamenti" service in the "Fatture e corrispettivi" portal. It is a virtual pairing, not a cable. It covers payment instruments in use on 1 January 2026 or used during that month, and the deadline for those was 20 April 2026. A POS used only for sales exempt from receipt certification does not need to be linked. If you issue the documento commerciale through the Agenzia's web procedure instead of an RT, you link from the same service. A new terminal has to be paired from the sixth day of the second month after it becomes available, and by the last working day of that month. Missing the pairing is fined 1,000 to 4,000 euros under article 11(5) of D.Lgs. 471/1997, as extended by Legge 207/2024 (article 1, paragraph 75) from 1 January 2026. It also brings a suspension of the licence for 15 days to two months, or two to six months for a repeat breach (article 12(3)). From 1 January 2027 these articles are replaced by the consolidated tax-sanctions code (D.Lgs. 173/2024).

Getting paid

The customer's authorisation is immediate. The settlement and payout to your bank account follow your contract, usually counted in working days. No national rule fixes it, so ask for the number in writing.

Italy adds a second ledger. Your RT sends the day's takings to the Agenzia delle Entrate, and since 2026 each POS is paired with the RT it works with. So your card sales are now visible from two sides: the tax record and the payout. Reconcile them every day. If the payout and the RT total differ by more than fees, refunds or a chargeback, find out why before an auditor asks.

What I'd tell a merchant here

Buy a terminal that does contactless and phone payments. Nearly nine card payments in ten are already a tap.

Pair the POS with the RT the day it arrives. Do not wait for the second month.

Keep taking cash. Keep taking cards. In Italy that is still one shop, not two.