Lebanon had 1,727,765 payment cards in circulation at the end of June 2026, up 13,768 from the 1,713,997 recorded at the close of 2025. That is a rise of 0.80% over six months, which looks flat until you open up the four card types underneath it.
The figures come from Banque du Liban statistics compiled by Credit Libanais research, published on 9 September.
Debit Cards Carried the Growth
Debit cards rose 5.68% to 1,253,963, adding 67,442 cards. Charge cards grew 6.79% to 103,694, adding 6,592. Together the two categories put 74,034 new cards into the market.
Debit now accounts for roughly 73% of every payment card held in Lebanon. That concentration says a lot about how people bank in a country where credit issuance has stayed tight since 2019. Credit cards barely moved, slipping 0.44% to 68,812, and they now make up about 4% of the total.
Prepaid Cards Lost Nearly 60,000
The one category moving hard in the other direction was prepaid. Prepaid cards fell 16.60% to 301,296, a loss of 59,960 cards in six months. Most of the debit and charge growth was absorbed by that decline, which is why the overall total ended up almost flat.
Prepaid cards became a workaround during the worst years of the banking crisis, when fresh dollar accounts and functioning debit access were hard to come by. A drop of that size suggests holders are moving back into standard accounts rather than leaving the formal system.
Terminals Grew Far Faster Than Cards
The sharpest number in the release has nothing to do with cards. Electronic points of sale expanded by 5,053 terminals, or 22.60%, reaching 27,410 by the end of June. At the close of 2025 there were 22,357.
That changes the ratio of cards to acceptance points. Lebanon now has roughly 63 payment cards for every POS terminal, down from about 77 six months earlier. More merchants taking cards matters more for daily spending than a marginal increase in the number of cards in wallets.
Where the ATMs Sit
The ATM network grew 0.77% in the first half, adding 11 machines to reach 1,443, up from 1,432 at end 2025.
Distribution remains heavily weighted toward the centre of the country. Mount Lebanon holds 563 machines, or 39.02% of the network. Beirut and its suburbs account for 452 (31.32%). The North has 162 (11.23%), the Bekaa 119 (8.25%), the South 118 (8.18%) and Nabatieh 29 (2.01%). Between them, Mount Lebanon and Beirut hold just over 70% of every ATM in Lebanon.
BDL publishes these statistics twice a year. The next update will cover the second half of 2026.
