The U.S. Is Shifting Towards a Cashless Society

What we’re showing

This graphic shows the share of payment instrument use for all payments in the U.S. Figures come from the Federal Reserve’s latest Diary of Consumer Payment Choice.

Methodology

These figures are based on the results of a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers, which tracked purchases they made during an assigned three-day period (n= 4,453).

Cash use fell significantly during the pandemic

While the use of cash for payments was already trending downwards pre-pandemic, there was a significant drop between 2019 and 2020 (26% to 19%).