Walmart has announced it will accept Apple Pay and Google Pay via Tap to Pay at its Walmart and Sam's Club locations in the US, starting 24 August 2026.
According to the announcement, the plans focus on expanding the option to all Walmart and Sam's Club locations by the end of the year. The company also intends to bring the payment method to its fuel stations by the middle of 2027.
For several years, Walmart declined to support contactless mobile payment services such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, instead directing customers towards its own tools, including Walmart Pay and Scan-and-Go. Between 2012 and 2016, Walmart was among the retailers involved in the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium that developed CurrentC, a mobile payment system positioned as an alternative to Apple Pay. The initiative ceased operations in 2016.
Despite this history, contactless payment adoption has continued to expand across the US retail sector. According to Apple, Apple Pay is accepted at 85% of retailers in the country, including most larger chains, which had made Walmart one of the more prominent holdouts ahead of this announcement.
Company statement
In its announcement, Walmart described the addition of Tap to Pay as part of a broader effort to give customers and members more flexibility at checkout, alongside existing options such as cash, credit cards, and Walmart Pay. At the same time, the company positioned the change as an expansion of payment choice rather than a replacement for its existing tools.
Implications for the retail payments ecosystem
The rollout reflects a wider pattern in the payments industry, in which large retailers face growing pressure to support widely used mobile wallet infrastructure rather than rely solely on closed, proprietary systems. As one of the largest retail operators in the US, with both Walmart stores and Sam's Club membership warehouses, the company's decision affects a substantial share of everyday in-store transactions.
The phased approach, beginning with select stores and clubs before a nationwide extension by the end of 2026, indicates that Walmart intends to test the integration operationally before broadening its scope. Fuel stations, which involve separate point-of-sale infrastructure, have been scheduled for a later phase, expected by the middle of 2027.
Through the process of opening its checkout systems to Apple Pay and Google Pay, Walmart aligns itself with prevailing consumer payment habits in the US market, where contactless mobile payments have become standard at most major retail chains.
