Card spending data

Card spending data from Visa provides regular insights on visitor spending in Britain, by origin, card type, merchant category and more.

Released on:

June 2025

Next release:

August 2025

For further information, please contact [email protected].

Card spending: inbound visitor trends

Report highlights - data up to March 2025

  • Total inbound spend to Britain dipped 4% in March 2025 vs 2024, whilst card count grew 2% suggesting less spend per visit. Overall, Q1 saw spend down 2% in real terms and card count up 3%, with the later Easter this year (in April) potentially affecting March figures.
  • Length of stay continued to decline YoY and dropped below pre-covid levels in March 2025. Average spend per trip was slightly down in real terms in March and in Q1 overall vs the previous year.
  • The highest growth in inbound spend came from European markets in March (Italy, Netherlands and Belgium) but the GCC led for growth overall in Q1 2025 (Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE).
  • In line with a weaker March, just 3 categories saw moderate growth vs 2024; Food & Grocery (6%), Travel Servies (5%) and Drug Stores & Pharmacies (2%). Cash withdrawals continued a significant year-on-year decline with spend down by 26%.

View the latest report

Inbound card spending insights - Monthly report up to March 2025

Explore the inbound visitor card spending data

Use our visualisations to explore this data in greater depth. See inbound spending behaviours by origin market, destination county/region and LVEP area.

Reports archive

Please note that the data shared in these reports may change in future publications, due to improvements in data processing.

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    Card Spending to Britain - Inbound Report (Published August 2024)

    Please do not re-publish data from this report on any public platform, including combining the data with that from other sources, before contacting VisitBritain/VisitEngland for approval.

About the data

VisitBritain/VisitEngland gained access to card spending insights via the ‘Visa Destination Insights’ dashboard. This dashboard offers data on monthly spend by domestic and inbound visitors to Britain in addition to a range of other key metrics designed to uncover visitor spending behaviour. Trends can be analysed by visitor origin, region type, card type, the merchant categories which money was spent on, and more.

Definition of key metrics:

  • Spend amount refers to the total spend taking place in an area for a selected period of time.
  • Card count refers to the total unique Visa cards used in transactions within an area for a selected period of time
  • Transaction count refers to the total transactions taken place in an area for a selected period of time.
  • Average spend per transaction is calculated by dividing total spend by transaction count.
  • Average stay duration and average spend per trip are calculated based on identifying ‘trips’ where travellers made purchases outside their residence for a period of two days or more. Stay duration is based on the dates of first and last transactions in Britain.

An ‘inbound visitor’ is defined as a cardholder of a Visa card registered outside the UK, who has made purchases within Britain. International cardholders who make purchases in Britain for a period of 3 months or more are excluded as ‘international residents’.