Mastercard to require offline payment capability on new European cards from 2027

Mastercard announced on October 8 that all newly issued Mastercard cards in Europe must support offline payments from February 2027, and that all new and replacement payment terminals must support them by May 2027, according to the company’s release. The requirements apply across its European network and are intended to keep payments working when power or network connections fail.

Offline payments work by storing spending limits on the card’s chip, and the transaction is submitted for clearing once the connection is restored, according to the release. The limit is set in advance by the cardholder’s bank, according to finews. Cardholders will be able to pay by chip and PIN during an outage at places such as supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies and ticket machines, finews reported.

Mastercard said the capability is already in place in Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia. In Denmark this spring, when a technical outage isolated terminals from the wider payment system, its crisis procedures let many transactions continue at critical merchants, the company said. The rollout follows coordination with partners, national governments, regulators and central banks. Brice van de Walle, executive vice president of core payments at Mastercard, said people still need food, fuel and medicine when power or networks go down.

The move follows the April 2025 blackout across Spain and Portugal that left around 55 million people unable to make digital payments, according to Yahoo Finance. Germany is among the countries where offline payments will become available gradually from 2027, according to Mastercard Europe’s Frankfurt release of October 12, as reproduced by Swiss News. The requirements cover only newly issued cards and new or replacement terminals.

Finextra noted that the European Central Bank has made offline payments a central part of the digital euro’s design.