Credit cards accounted for 34% of U.S. consumer payments in 2025, up from 18% a decade earlier, while cash's share dropped from 33% to 14%, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Federal Reserve data. The shift comes as New York requires food stores and other retailers to keep accepting cash, preserving an option many shoppers still use.
The national figures describe the share of transactions, not the share of dollars spent or the behavior of every shopper. Debit cards represented 31% of payments in 2025, leaving credit and debit cards together at nearly two-thirds of transactions in the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's study.
The Atlanta Fed's Survey and Diary of Consumer Payment Choice asks U.S. adults to record transactions over three days. Pew compared its results with earlier years and drew separately on a 2026 Pew survey about whether people use any cash during a typical week. Those are different measures and should not be treated as interchangeable.
A decade of changing transactions
Cash was the leading payment method in 2015, Pew said. Debit cards overtook it in 2018, and credit cards moved ahead of debit cards in 2022. In 2025, the average cash purchase was $58, compared with $74 by debit card and $80 by credit card.
Pew's analysis also found that 42% of respondents in its 2026 survey said they made no cash purchases in a typical week, up from 24% in 2015. Twelve percent said they used cash for all or almost all purchases, down from 24%. Those survey answers do not mean 42% of transactions nationwide were cashless for an entire year.
Cards are also the preferred way to pay for in-person purchases for 78% of people in the Atlanta Fed survey, compared with 16% who prefer cash. For bills, preferences are more divided: 47% favor cards and 40% favor online banking or direct transfers.
What the shift means in New York
New York's statewide cash-acceptance law took effect in March. It generally bars food stores and retail establishments from refusing cash or charging more for its use, with exceptions including bills over $20 and some remote transactions. The law does not require consumers to choose cash; it protects their ability to do so in covered stores.
The Pew and Federal Reserve figures are national. Neither analysis cited here establishes the share of Finger Lakes purchases made with cash or cards, or shows whether New York's law changed payment behavior. The local relevance is that residents can still choose cash at covered retailers even as card use rises nationally.
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