--- title: 'You Can''t Use Apple Pay on Amazon: Here''s the Real Reason Why' description: Walmart finally accepts Apple Pay after years of customer demands. Could Amazon could be next to change its payment policy? authors: - name: Pete Grieve role: Lead News Reporter url: https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/ bio: Pete Grieve is a personal finance reporter. In his time at Money, Pete has covered everything from car buying to credit cards to the housing market. education: University of Chicago, BA Political Science at_money_since: 2022 articles: 610 covers: - Shopping - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Taxes social: - https://twitter.com/pete_grieve - https://linkedin.com/in/pete-grieve-b5aa02138 - https://www.facebook.com/petegrieve4 editors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 454 covers: - Shopping - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum published: '2026-10-27T16:54:52.000Z' modified: '2026-10-27T16:54:52.000Z' section: Shopping tags: - News word_count: 1214 canonical: https://money.com/why-doesnt-amazon-accept-apple-pay/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** Money may earn a commission when you click on the products and services below. Opinions are our own, but compensation and in-depth research determine where and how they appear. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/) about how we make money. ![Amazon boxes and IPhone](https://img.money.com/2026/10/News-Amazon-apple-pay.jpg) Many of the country's largest retailers and marketplaces — brands like Target, Home Depot and eBay — now accept Apple Pay wherever you check out. Amazon, the biggest online retailer in the U.S., is a key exception. Amazon has never publicly commented on why it doesn't accept Apple Pay, and neither has Apple, which did not respond to Money's inquiries. But with Walmart finally breaking, [announcing in August](https://money.com/walmart-tap-to-pay/) that it would accept Apple Pay after years of customer demands, shoppers are wondering whether Amazon could be next. The stats around Apple Pay's penetration are impressive — but perhaps unsurprising for Apple, which ships more than half of U.S. smartphones. Apple says its payment service is now accepted at over 85% of U.S. retailers, giving its users millions of places to shop even without a wallet. Double-press the side button, tap, pay, go. ## Walmart now accepts Apple Pay. What about Amazon? Recognizing that digital wallets are gaining popularity, Walmart is adding tap-to-pay in all its stores by the end of 2026. Shoppers have rejoiced in online forums (and, in at least one instance, [at a night club](https://www.tiktok.com/@crybaby_phx/video/7676952995451440398)). However, it's notable that Walmart has not added Apple Pay as a payment option online. The change applies to the company's 4,600 stores, not Walmart.com. Amazon declined to comment on Money's questions for this story but did confirm that Whole Foods, which it has owned since 2017, accepts Apple Pay in its 540 brick-and-mortar locations in the U.S. In this respect, Amazon and Walmart are now on similar footing: Both accept Apple Pay in stores, but not online. Eric Cohen, founder and CEO at Merchant Advocate, predicts that Amazon will continue holding out. Regular Amazon shoppers, including Prime members, generally have a card number on file, and the Amazon Buy Now button already makes payment easy. "Amazon has their one-click. It's frictionless," he says. (It's also one of the most famous [patents](https://blog.withedge.com/p/the-legacy-of-amazons-1-click-checkout) in software history.) Where Apple Pay *could* make a difference for Amazon is in attracting new customers, Cohen says. With Apple Pay, you don't have to get out your [wallet](https://money.com/do-you-still-need-a-wallet/), find your credit card, type a 16-digit card number and complete the fields on a tiny mobile device. The experience would be seamless for new Amazon customers shopping on an iPhone. Amazon has over 200 million paying members in the U.S.; Apple Pay is used by hundreds of millions globally. These are the kinds of numbers Cohen says Amazon is likely crunching behind the scenes. ## What Amazon would lose by accepting Apple Pay Amazon's reticence to accept Apple Pay likely has little to do with cost — Apple doesn't charge merchants a special fee to accept Apple Pay in stores or online. "It's about control of data," Cohen says. By accepting Apple Pay, retailers give up a whole lot of valuable information: a customer's actual payment card number and associated data. Apple Pay masks this information for security. Instead of seeing an actual card number, Amazon would see a tokenized number for those transactions, which could create several issues for the company. Card data helps Amazon build its risk models, which indicate the likelihood of fraud and chargebacks, says Aaron McPherson, principal and founder of AFM Consulting. Because these are expensive problems to solve, Amazon has a vested interest in preventing them — hence its desire to hang on to customers' card data. Also, on debit card transactions, companies like Amazon benefit from a [legal requirement](https://www.americanbanker.com/payments/news/fed-says-debit-cards-must-connect-to-multiple-networks-even-online) that debit transactions must give retailers a choice from at least two unaffiliated networks for routing, helping them save on fees, McPherson says. Amazon could lose that ability with Apple Pay. ## Is the Big Tech rivalry to blame? The long history of competition between Amazon and Apple likely factors into why you can't use Apple Pay on Amazon. "When you're talking about these giants, there's got to be a little bit of this… ego," Cohen adds. "They're like [friendly enemies](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-selling-apple-iphones-ipads-after-turf-war-with-apple-2018-11), but I think it would be really hard for Amazon to go, 'OK, let's put that Apple logo on.'" As two of the world's most valuable companies, they inevitably compete in many areas. Earlier this month, for example, Apple unveiled its HomeView smart home hub, powered by Siri, which will challenge Amazon's Echo lineup, powered by Alexa. The two firms have also clashed over payments for more than 15 years. In 2010, then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs and other executives were internally discussing how to respond to an Amazon commercial promoting Kindle. Phil Schiller, then Apple's senior vice president, [wrote](https://web.archive.org/web/20220920011808/https://judiciary.house.gov/UploadedFiles/014701.pdf) in an email that the ad shows a customer using an iPhone to purchase books with the Kindle app. "The woman then switches to an Android phone and still can read all her books," Schiller added. "Not fun to watch." In response, Jobs suggested that "the first step might be to say they must use our payment system for everything, including books… let’s force them to use our far superior payment system," he wrote. The emails first surfaced [in 2013](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-amazon-ad-that-scared-apples-top-executives-2013-8) as part of the U.S. Department of Justice's 2012 e-book case against Apple. More recently, the emails became the opening example in the department's [2024 "smartphone monopoly"](https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline) antitrust complaint against Apple. The year after the ad, Apple started requiring a 30% cut from Amazon and other retailers on in-app e-book purchases, prompting Amazon to turn off the purchase feature in the app. The dust still hasn't settled. "They \[Amazon\] definitely see Apple as a big rival, and so I think it's unlikely that they would do anything to help Apple out," McPherson says. ## Amazon Pay vs. Apple Pay The 2024 DOJ case is [ongoing](https://9to5mac.com/2026/10/16/report-apples-antitrust-negotiations-with-the-doj-spark-concerns-of-a-weak-settlement/), and Apple is reportedly in settlement talks. The case involves allegations that Apple has kept its No. 1 spot, in part, by blocking other digital wallets from using its near field communication (NFC) chip for tap-to-pay. "While Apple actively encourages [banks](https://money.com/best-banks/), merchants and other parties to participate in Apple Wallet, Apple simultaneously exerts its smartphone monopoly to block these same partners from developing better payment products and services for iPhone users," the complaint read. Google Pay is Apple Pay's most direct parallel, functioning as the Apple Pay for Android users. But Amazon has its own wallet, too: Amazon Pay. Amazon's goals for Amazon Pay are part of the reason you likely won't see Apple Pay on Amazon anytime soon, according to Tony DeSanctis, vice president at Cornerstone Advisors. Amazon Pay not only powers payments on Amazon.com — it's also accepted at thousands of non-Amazon retailers, including Grubhub, Casper and Fashion Nova. "They're trying to generate revenue off of that by bringing smaller merchants into their ecosystem, and so they're actually doing exactly what Apple's doing," DeSanctis says. "They're not going to embolden their own competitor, Apple Pay, by giving them all of that Amazon volume." For everyday shoppers, the benefit of both services is convenience. Third-party merchants that add the Amazon Pay button to their checkout processes enable shoppers to use payment info already stored in their Amazon account. In a January 2024 comment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Amazon said that digital wallets "are additive, not limiting, in terms of consumer options" and "often promote consumer safety." 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