Mastercard has announced that all its newly issued cards will be able to make offline payments from February 2027 and from May 2027 all new and replacement terminals will be required to accept them.

The payments company said the move will allow allowing people to continue making purchases during power cuts and network outages.

The announcement follows recent disruption across Europe, including the power outage in Spain and Portugal in April 2025, which left an estimated 55 million people unable to make digital payments.

Mastercard said the capability will allow customers to use chip and PIN to buy essential items, including food, fuel and medicine, when payment terminals lose their network connection. Offline payments will also be available at travel and ticket machines.

The technology works by storing a spending limit on the payment card's chip. If a terminal cannot connect to the payment network, it can approve transactions locally up to a limit of €200 per purchase, with the exact limit determined by the cardholder's bank. Transactions are then processed once the network connection is restored.

Mastercard said it has already introduced offline payments in Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia. During a recent storm in Latvia, the system allowed card payments to continue at shops operating on backup generators. In Denmark, offline payments were also used during a technical outage that disconnected payment terminals from the wider network.

The company added it developed the wider European rollout in collaboration with governments, regulators, central banks and industry partners.

The expansion also follows investment in local payment infrastructure and cybersecurity over the past year as Mastercard seeks to improve the resilience of payment networks.

“When the power or network goes down, people still need to buy food, fuel and medicine,” said Brice van de Walle, executive vice president, core payments at Mastercard. “We’ve seen that offline payments can make a real difference. By expanding this technology across Europe, we can help people keep paying for the things they need, even when the unexpected happens.”

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