← All trends
Money Is Weird
Cash falls to about 1 in 7 payments
Cash is still fading, but it is not vanishing. About 1 in 7 U.S. payments still uses cash, and the latest year barely moved.
→ Plateauing72% confidencehorizon Dec 2028data as of 2025
Confidence-weighted forecast · history → projection
Tracking transactions in cash (%)
ObservedProjectionshaded band = confidence cone
72%
Confidence
2028
Horizon
Jun 2026
First called
Tracking
Status
The call
Think about the last time you actually counted out coins. Then think about how normal that used to be.
The number to notice
Cash has fallen from 2-in-5 payments to fewer than 1-in-6.
What’s driving this
- Cards still win most everyday payments because tapping is fast and easy.
- Cash is hanging on as a backup for outages, emergencies, small purchases, and people who still budget with bills in hand.
- Older adults, lower-income households, and rural shoppers still use cash more often than everyone else.
The track record
- Oct 2025 · 70%
Called falling at 70% as tap-to-pay crossed into the default.
- Jun 2026 · 78%
Raised to 78% — even cash-preferring demographics are switching.
- Jun 2026 · 72%
Changed to plateauing — 2025 cash share was 14% of U.S. consumer payments, a small dip rather than a collapse.
For you
Your wallet is becoming a phone — and the few places that are cash-only feel like time travel.
What would change our mind
If cash drops below about 10% of U.S. payments for more than one year, the disappearing-cash story is back. If it stays near 14%, the better story is a smaller but durable cash floor.
Behind the numbersOpen
Illustrative share-of-transactions; pace varies by country. A privacy backlash or outage could slow the decline.