World Bank Group · Share of Firms' Payments Made Electronically
Firms' electronic payments by country
What share of their payments do firms make electronically?
Of the 163 countries compared in the 2026 edition, Norway had the highest reading, 99.913%, and São Tomé and Príncipe had the lowest reading, 2.172%. In the middle country the figure was 64.219%.
Share
Firms' electronic payments · the 2026 edition
Context statistic
Highest of 163Norway
99.913%01the 2026 edition · values only
Who leads
The three countries at the highest end of 163 compared, the three at the other end, and the first on each continent.
1Photo: Ximonic , Simo Räsänen · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
2Photo: Joonas Lyytinen · CC BY-SA 2.5, greyscale
3Photo: Hansueli Krapf · CC BY-SA 3.0, greyscale
Lowest in the 2026 edition
São Tomé and Príncipe2.172%
Bangladesh3.193%
Palestine3.264%
Where a country sits says how it compares with the others measured, and nothing about why.
02Every measured country
Firms' electronic payments on a map
Each country is shaded by its value, in five groups holding the same number of countries. Hover a country for its value, or select it to open its profile. Below the map, each continent’s middle country.
Darker is a higher value — the better end.
- 2.172–26.255%
- 28.249–53.354%
- 55.971–73.750%
- 74.092–92.838%
- 93.067–99.913%
- No reading in the 2026 edition
- Europe
94.688%
the middle country, of 36 measured · 49 members
Norway99.913%
Albania64.219%Highest and lowest reading in Europe.
- Americas
71.408%
the middle country, of 26 measured · 48 members
Chile95.550%
Trinidad and Tobago34.700%Highest and lowest reading in Americas.
- Asia
67.110%
the middle country, of 43 measured · 52 members
China97.757%Bangladesh3.193%Highest and lowest reading in Asia.
- Oceania
36.345%
the middle country, of 9 measured · 21 members
New Zealand99.678%
Tonga22.696%Highest and lowest reading in Oceania.
- Africa
33.745%
the middle country, of 49 measured · 55 members
Somalia91.855%São Tomé and Príncipe2.172%Highest and lowest reading in Africa.
- Every region
22 sub-regions, highest middle country first
- Northern Europe
98.922%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 13 members
Norway99.913%
Lithuania83.600%Highest and lowest reading in Northern Europe.
- Western Europe
97.341%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 9 members
Netherlands99.749%
Austria95.290%Highest and lowest reading in Western Europe.
- Southern Europe
94.012%
the middle country, of 13 measured · 17 members
Croatia97.967%Albania64.219%Highest and lowest reading in Southern Europe.
- Eastern Europe
91.976%
the middle country, of 7 measured · 10 members
Moldova94.715%
Poland86.758%Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Europe.
- Eastern Asia
79.288%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 8 members
China97.757%
Hong Kong22.292%Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Asia.
- South America
77.440%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 12 members
Chile95.550%
Bolivia58.663%Highest and lowest reading in South America.
- Central Asia
67.502%
the middle country, of 5 measured · 5 members
Turkmenistan78.204%
Uzbekistan36.838%Highest and lowest reading in Central Asia.
- Western Asia
67.304%
the middle country, of 14 measured · 19 members
Qatar89.021%Palestine3.264%Highest and lowest reading in Western Asia.
- Central America
66.529%
the middle country, of 6 measured · 8 members
Costa Rica89.099%
El Salvador43.059%Highest and lowest reading in Central America.
- South-eastern Asia
64.639%
the middle country, of 10 measured · 11 members
Malaysia78.645%
Philippines17.365%Highest and lowest reading in South-eastern Asia.
- Caribbean
44.080%
the middle country, of 8 measured · 24 members
Jamaica74.343%Trinidad and Tobago34.700%Highest and lowest reading in Caribbean.
- Eastern Africa
37.350%
the middle country, of 17 measured · 19 members
Somalia91.855%
Mozambique7.470%Highest and lowest reading in Eastern Africa.
- Western Africa
30.000%
the middle country, of 16 measured · 16 members
Nigeria74.911%
Guinea-Bissau9.088%Highest and lowest reading in Western Africa.
- Middle Africa
24.329%
the middle country, of 9 measured · 9 members
Angola73.133%São Tomé and Príncipe2.172%Highest and lowest reading in Middle Africa.
- Southern Asia
23.503%
the middle country, of 8 measured · 9 members
Maldives92.412%Bangladesh3.193%Highest and lowest reading in Southern Asia.
- Australia and New Zealand
2 of 2 measured — too few for a middle: Australia, New Zealand.
New Zealand99.678%
Australia99.152%Highest and lowest reading in Australia and New Zealand.
- Melanesia
4 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu.
Papua New Guinea80.052%
Solomon Islands28.819%Highest and lowest reading in Melanesia.
- Micronesia
1 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Kiribati.
Kiribati28.249%Highest and lowest reading in Micronesia.
- Northern Africa
3 of 6 measured — too few for a middle: Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia.
Egypt31.522%
Morocco16.120%Highest and lowest reading in Northern Africa.
- Northern America
2 of 4 measured — too few for a middle: Canada, United States.
Canada74.575%
United States73.750%Highest and lowest reading in Northern America.
- Polynesia
2 of 7 measured — too few for a middle: Samoa, Tonga.
Samoa23.016%Tonga22.696%Highest and lowest reading in Polynesia.
- Southern Africa
4 of 5 measured — too few for a middle: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia.
Namibia71.354%
Eswatini52.291%Highest and lowest reading in Southern Africa.
03The whole field at once
The spread
163 countries, one dot each, on one scale — further right is a higher value. Half the countries are above 64.219%; a quarter are above 88.962%, and a quarter below 34.287%. The bar in each row marks that continent’s middle country.
04All 163 ever measured
Every country
In order, highest value first. No rank or position is shown: too many countries share the same value for an order to mean anything. The figure counts payments, not their value: a firm that pays a few large bills electronically and many small ones in cash reads low. Cash can be a choice as well as a constraint, so a lower share is not always a failing.
Showing 25 of 163 countries
Values for the 2026 edition.
05In this edition
Firms' electronic payments in records
The extremes of the statistic. A record reached by more than one country names none of them.
Highest reading
99.913%
Payments made electronically in a typical month, excluding payroll and payments to government (%)
Lowest reading
2.172%
Payments made electronically in a typical month, excluding payroll and payments to government (%)
06The measure
About firms' electronic payments
This is the share of their payments that private firms make electronically in a typical month — to suppliers and other businesses, leaving out wages and payments to government — from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys. It shows how far businesses have moved from cash and cheques to digital payment.
What the number is: Payments made electronically in a typical month, excluding payroll and payments to government (%).
07Where it fits
Connections
Its part in the Country Index, the statistics whose values line up most closely with it across countries, and others on the same subject.
In the Country Index
Context, with no vote
This statistic is published in full under Money & Public Finance and Digital & Technology, but does not help decide any Country Index standing.
Money & Public FinanceDigital & TechnologyWhich statistics vote, and why
Moves with
Where firms' electronic payments is higher, these tend to be higher too.
- Women's Empowerment IndexUNDP Human Development Report Office and UN Women · 106 countries in commonρ 0.85
- World Energy Trilemma IndexKeyWorld Energy Council · 116 countries in commonρ 0.78
- Account Ownership Among WomenWorld Bank Group · 129 countries in commonρ 0.78
Moves against
Where firms' electronic payments is higher, these tend to be lower.
- Informal Employment RateILO · 85 countries in commonρ −0.77
- Gender Inequality IndexUNDP Human Development Report Office · 152 countries in commonρ −0.76
- Stillbirth RateUN IGME · 161 countries in commonρ −0.76
Rank correlation (ρ, from −1 to 1) across countries, on each statistic’s newest edition, out of 374 statistics sharing at least 80 countries with this one. Two statistics that move together do not cause each other.
08Keep reading
Explore further
The subject
The data, edition by edition
The countries at either end
More from World Bank Group
09Questions
Firms' electronic payments: questions and answers
Which country has the highest firms' electronic payments?
Norway, at 99.913%, among the 163 countries compared in the 2026 edition.
Which country has the lowest firms' electronic payments?
São Tomé and Príncipe, at 2.172%, among the 163 countries compared in the 2026 edition.
How many countries does the Share of Firms' Payments Made Electronically cover?
163 in the 2026 edition.
What is the world average firms' electronic payments?
This site does not calculate a world average, which would depend on how countries are weighted. In the middle country of the 163 compared in the 2026 edition, the figure was 64.219%.
Is this World Bank Group’s own ranking?
No ranking is shown. World Bank Group publishes values only, and too many countries share the same value for an ordering to mean anything, so none is derived.
How often is the Share of Firms' Payments Made Electronically published?
This site holds one edition, describing 2026.
Where does the data come from, and can I download it?
From World Bank Group, under CC BY 4.0. World Bank Enterprise Surveys on Data360, read from the full-precision bulk file, one reading per country from its most recent survey. Every edition is on this site’s Datasets pages as a full table, and downloads as a CSV file with every value unrounded.
10Method
Sources, method and citation
Source
Share of Firms' Payments Made Electronically — World Bank Group
World Bank Enterprise Surveys on Data360, read from the full-precision bulk file, one reading per country from its most recent survey.
Newest edition
Report year 2026Data year not recorded
Cite the source as: World Bank. Enterprise Surveys. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
Licence: CC BY 4.0, checked 2026-09-29.
How this page reads the numbers
- No rank or position is shown: World Bank Group publishes values only, and too many countries share the same value for an ordering to mean anything.
- Which end is better follows the publisher’s own reading of the measure.
- A country is named at an end only when it holds that value alone. Where several share it, the page says how many and names none first.
- The file gives each country’s most recent reading, so the rows are from different years. Readings from before 2016 are listed but left out of every comparison on this page.
- Values are stored exactly as published and trimmed only for display. “The middle country” is the median of the countries measured, not a world average.
The file itself, column by column — where it came from, what each column holds, and every edition as a CSV — is on its dataset page.
Photographs
The countries at the top of this statistic, from their profiles: Wikimedia Commons, shown in greyscale, each used under the licence named.
- Norway — Ximonic , Simo Räsänen, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Finland — Joonas Lyytinen, CC BY-SA 2.5
- Iceland — Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0
Cite this page
Nations Inquiry (2026). Firms' electronic payments by country: Share of Firms' Payments Made Electronically, data from World Bank Group. https://nationsinquiry.com/statistics/firms-electronic-payments