Most Popular Credit Card By Country: Visa, Mastercard Or Amex (2024)

The map above shows which credit card company is the most popular in each country based on Google search data from Google Trends. It does not reflect the number of cards issued, nor transaction volume, simply the volume of searches for each company.

Overall, Google was able to provide data for 168 countries. Of those countries, Visa is the clear winner, being the most popular credit card company in 123 countries. Surprisingly, American Express (AMEX) is the most popular in 23 countries including the UK and US. Finally, Mastercard was the most popular company in 22 countries including Canada and Australia.

However, when you look at data on the biggest credit card networks, the data looks slightly different. Visa is the largest creit card issuer in the United States. According to CreditCards.com data, Visa has 304 million cards in circulation in the US and 545 million cards in circulation outside the US. Total transaction volume in the US was $1.2 trillion USD in 2014.

Mastercard has 191 million cards in circulation in the US and 576 million cards in circulation outside the US, which actually places it ahead of Visa globally (excluding US). However, US transaction volume is only $607 billion, around half of Visa’s total.

Finally, American Express is much smaller than the two giants with only 54.9 million cards in circulation in the US and another 57.3 million cards in the rest of the world. However, due to the affluence of their average customer, their transaction volume in the US is slightly higher than Mastercard’s at around $668 billion.

So why is Amex so popular in many countries, given it’s much smaller size?

This can likely attributed to the way Google collects search trends data. Data was for total searches for each company. And while Visa and Mastercard specialise in credit cards, American Express offers a variety of other services including insurance, travellers cheques and other travel and rewards services.

They also issue their own cards as opposed to Visa and Mastercard who issue their cards via banks, building societies, retailers and other financial services companies.

Also it should be noted that while we looked at China Unionpay, Discover Card and other credit card issuers, they were not included as there were no country where they were the most popular brand.

The reason why Unionpay was not the most popular brand in China is due to the fact data comes from Google, which only has around a 9% share of the Chinese search market and likely skews towards expats and those with an international focus.

The full list of countries by credit card company popularity is below:

The 123 countries where Visa is the most popular credit card company

1. Albania
2. Algeria
3. Andorra
4. Angola
5. Argentina
6. Armenia
7. Austria
8. Azerbaijan
9. Bahrain
10. Bangladesh
11. Barbados
12. Belarus
13. Belgium
14. Benin
15. Bhutan
16. Bolivia
17. Bosnia Herzegovina
18. Botswana
19. Brunei
20. Bulgaria
21. Burkina Faso
22. Burundi
23. Cambodia
24. Cameroon
25. Colombia
26. Congo (Democratic Republic)
27. Congo
28. Cuba
29. Cyprus
30. Djibouti
31. Dominican Republic
32. Ecuador
33. Egypt
34. El Salvador
35. Ethiopia
36. Fiji
37. France
38. Gabon
39. Gambia
40. Germany
41. Ghana
42. Greece
43. Guatemala
44. Guinea
45. Guyana
46. Haiti
47. Honduras
48. Indonesia
49. Iran
50. Iraq
51. Ireland
52. Israel
53. Jamaica
54. Japan
55. Jordan
56. Kazakhstan
57. Kenya
58. Kosovo
59. Kuwait
60. Kyrgyzstan
61. Laos
62. Lebanon
63. Liberia
64. Libya
65. Luxembourg
66. Macedonia
67. Madagascar
68. Malaysia
69. Mali
70. Malta
71. Mauritania
72. Mauritius
73. Montenegro
74. Morocco
75. Mozambique
76. Myanmar
77. Namibia
78. Nepal
79. Netherlands
80. New Zealand
81. Nicaragua
82. Niger
83. Oman
84. Pakistan
85. Palestinian territories
86. Panama
87. Papua New Guinea
88. Paraguay
89. Peru
90. Philippines
91. Poland
92. Portugal
93. Qatar
94. Romania
95. Russia
96. Saudi Arabia
97. Senegal
98. Serbia
99. Sierra Leone
100. Slovakia
101. Somalia
102. South Korea
103. Spain
104. Sudan
105. Suriname
106. Syria
107. Taiwan
108. Tajikistan
109. Tanzania
110. Thailand
111. Timor-Leste
112. Togo
113. Trinidad & Tobago
114. Tunisia
115. Turkey
116. Turkmenistan
117. Uganda
118. United Arab Emirates
119. Uruguay
120. Uzbekistan
121. Vietnam
122. Yemen
123. Zambia

The 23 countries where American Express (AMEX) is the most popular credit card company

1. Afghanistan
2. Bahamas
3. Belize
4. Bermuda
5. China
6. Costa Rica
7. Croatia
8. French Guiana
9. Georgia
10. Hong Kong
11. Iceland
12. India
13. Italy
14. Latvia
15. Mexico
16. Mongolia
17. Puerto Rico
18. Singapore
19. South Africa
20. Sri Lanka
21. United Kingdom
22. United States
23. Venezuela

The 22 countries where Mastercard is the most popular credit card company

1. Australia
2. Brazil
3. Canada
4. Chile
5. Côte d’Ivoire
6. Czech Republic
7. Denmark
8. Estonia
9. Finland
10. Greenland
11. Hungary
12. Lithuania
13. Malawi
14. Moldova
15. Nigeria
16. Norway
17. Rwanda
18. Slovenia
19. Sweden
20. Switzerland
21. Ukraine
22. Zimbabwe

Use of this map: You are free to use this map on your own website BUT YOU MUST provide linked attribution back to this blog post and/or MerchantMachine.co.uk. Map created using MapChart.net.

For more see our guide to the best card machines for small business in the UK.

Enjoy this post? Please help us by sharing it: