Card spending data
Card spending: inbound visitor trends
Report highlights - data up to December 2025
- Total inbound spend to Britain grew by 1% in December 2025 vs 2024, whilst cardholder visits declined by 1%. Overall, full year 2025 spending was up by 3%, with cardholder visits up by 2%.
- Length of stay continued to decline YoY in December 2025 but remained above pre-Covid levels. Average spend per visit declined in December and in 2025 overall vs the previous year in real terms.
- The highest growth in inbound spend in 2025 came from Italy, Sweden, and the UAE.
- In 2025, half of the spend categories saw growth vs 2024; led by Drug Stores & Pharmacies, and Food & Grocery.
View the latest report
Inbound card spending insights - Monthly report up to December 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.
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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’.