How do I make payments at Walmart without Apple Pay or Apple Card?

Walmart does not accept ANY tap-to-pay from any company. Apple is not the only one with this issue. Customers have been lobbying Walmart to join the 21st century for years. They are more concerned with obtaining your personal data than making it easy for you.

Walmart will indeed accept payment by swiping the physical Apple Mastercard. Do you have the physical titanium metal Apple Card? No card in your digital wallet will work. This all on Walmart, not Apple.

You can add your Apple Card to the Walmart App and use Walmart Pay to pay at the check stand by scanning the QR code. Be careful using the Walmart app though as they constantly pop up messages to sign up for Walmart+ and if you accept, you will be charged for that subscription service.

You will get the 1% cash back to your Apple Cash instead of the standard 2% for using Apple Pay.

Walmart wants control of your payment and purchasing information.

Walmart was a founder of MCX and CurrentC, an alternative payment system which failed.

As for tap-to-pay fraud, here is what that was likely referencing:

• https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/arrests-in-tap-to-pay-scheme-powered-by-phishing/

It’s a simple business decision on Walmarts part. They operate their own payment processing system because of the millions of transactions they do everyday. That’s money they can keep in their pocket rather than letting you have it, the issuing bank have it, or the Payment Network Operator have it.

Ever wonder why they currently don’t offer a Walmart credit card? The banks all end up losing money and getting sued by Walmart for millions. Capital One was the last victim. They lost billions over the run of the card. Walmart just announced another victim ( 4th I think) Synchrony Bank is going to start offering a Walmart card. I wish them luck.

Hello~ Let Walmart know about your displeasure. Apple can’t force them to do anything about this…

~Katana-San~

This is getting pretty universal. Almost anywhere I go locally, they have a sign by the register that they will not accept Apple Pay, or tap pay from any other phone.

An owner explained it to me once when I asked, and there's a very common fraud that prevents them from being paid that way. Wish I could remember the details, but that's the general gist.

That’s BS from the merchant. If it were true every TV news station and YouTuber that concentrates on Apple would be all over it. If it were so easy Visa, Mastercard, American Express etc. would not allow their cards on it. Just BS from a merchant that doesn’t understand it.

Yes, I wasn't real sure about that explanation, either. Especially when after making that post I tried looking up anything to support the idea. There is none.

But, it is true that almost no business around here will take Apple Pay, or any other tap pay from an Android phone.

I have the remnants of a small specialty travel service that never recovered from Covid. My merchant account (through Square) actually offers me their best rate if tap-to-pay is used. Merchants don’t pay to use the service either. The card issuing bank pays ten cents per $100 of each transaction. Banks gladly pay it because statistically Apple Pay is the safest (least fraud) way to pay.

Kurt Lang wrote:

This is getting pretty universal. Almost anywhere I go locally, they have a sign by the register that they will not accept Apple Pay, or tap pay from any other phone.

An owner explained it to me once when I asked, and there's a very common fraud that prevents them from being paid that way. Wish I could remember the details, but that's the general gist.

No it isn’t. In my neck of the woods almost everybody accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, etc. The only merchant who doesn’t is Walmart. it used to be Walmart and Home Depot but Home depot came around late last year.