What's my spending limit? While the contactless card limit is £100, you can now make payments over £100 using your mobile phone, providing your bank and the merchant in question authorises them. It's more secure than carrying cash, and quicker than Chip and PIN.

As of March 19, 2026, the mandatory government-imposed £100 limit on contactless card payments in the UK has been officially scrapped. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) updated the rules this year to give individual banks and card providers the freedom to set their own limits based on their fraud-detection capabilities and customer preferences. While many major banks have kept the £100 "default" for safety, several have introduced the ability for customers to custom-set their own limit (up to £200 or even £500) within their mobile banking apps. This change was driven by inflation and the increasing frequency of shoppers hitting the £100 cap during routine grocery trips. It is important to remember that this "limit" only applies to physical plastic cards. If you use Apple Pay or Google Pay on your smartphone or watch, there has technically never been a hard £100 limit (provided the retailer's terminal is modern), as these methods use "biometric authentication" (FaceID or Fingerprint) which is considered much more secure than a simple card tap. For 2026 travelers, this means you can often pay for expensive dinners or hotel stays with a single tap of your phone.