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09/02/2025September 2, 2025

‘Mit Karte, bitte’: More and more Germans finally prefer card payments

People in Germany have paid a total of €150.7 billion by card since JanuaryImage: Ute Grabowsky/photothek.net/picture alliance

Germans might be notorious for their love of cash, but record numbers of people in Germany are switching to card payments, even for small, everyday transactions — often even contactless!

At bakeries, cafes, kiosks, ticket machines and in shops big and small, the phrase “Mit Karte, bitte” (“By card, please”) is becoming more and more common, with over 4 billion card transactions recorded in the first half of 2025 alone.

According to “Euro Kartensysteme,” the Frankfurt-based company that operates Germany’s most popular type of debit card, the Girocard, that’s an increase of 5.3% from the first half of 2024.

The average price threshold at which Germans reach for their debit or credit card — or indeed smartphone — when paying for items has also continued to drop, falling beneath €40 ($46.60) for the first time in 2024 and dropping to a new low of €37.28 in the first half of this year.

In total, people in Germany have paid a total of €150.7 billion by card since January, up from €150.1 billion in the same period last year.

Perhaps most incredibly, the vast majority of German card transactions (87.5%) are now conducted contactless — just one small step for the rest of the world, but a huge leap for data-protection-conscious Germans.

According to “Euro Kartensysteme,” the COVID-19 pandemic was a major driver behind the development, with card payments — especially contactless — seen as more hygienic than physically swapping cash with other people.

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