The latest wave of the LINK Cash Index tells a story few would have predicted: more than half of UK shoppers (54%) have visited a business in the past eight weeks that encouraged them to pay in cashMoney in physical form such as banknotes and coins. More — through signs saying a shop accepts or prefers cash, or staff asking directly. And it works: three-quarters of those asked completed their purchase with notes and coins.
The nudging is concentrated precisely where the economics of cash bite hardest for the seller: cafés and restaurants (22% of encounters), independent shops (19%), hairdressers and beauty salons (16%) and outdoor markets (12%), with pubs and retail chains far behind. It is happening against a falling tide — cash withdrawals have fallen steadily since before the pandemic, £36 billion in the first half of 2026 against £57 billion in the same period of 2019 — but slowest in the rural and less affluent communities where independents ask for cash.
The twice-yearly LINK Cash Index tracks how people across the UK are using and thinking about cash. LINK’s research found that 77% of UK small and medium-sized retailers accept cash, that 46% of their in-person transactions are cash-based, and that nearly half of those businesses actively encourage its use — to avoid card fees (55%), improve liquidityDescribes the extent to which assets or rights can be converted into cash without causing a significant decrease in the asset’s price. Accordingly, liquidity is often inversely proportional to the profitability of the asset and involves the trade-off between the selling price and the time needed to convert it to cash. In finance, cash is considered the most liquid asset and cash is sometimes used as a synonym for liquidity (e.g. cash reserves; cash pooling…). More (50%) and speed up transactions (49%). And shoppers are complying: the share of consumers naming cash as their preferred way to pay rose from 13% in March to 15% in September. That pressure is not uniquely British. This autumn, protests over the cost of living have swept across Europe and beyond.
The backdrop is an economy in which every pound counts. UK consumer price inflation rose to 3.5% in September 2026, up from 3.1% in August, with motor fuel inflation at its highest since August 2022. High prices have not gone away — they have become a standing feature of household arithmetic. LINK’s consumer research finds cash is the paymentA transfer of funds which discharges an obligation on the part of a payer vis-à-vis a payee. More people consider most reassuring for staying within a budget and understanding what their shopping really costs.
“These results show cash remains a practical choice for millions and that many small businesses are actively encouraging its use, making a resilient ATM network more important than ever. It’s also fascinating to see when prompted, most people are happy to pay with cash and still choose it for certain retailers and services.” Graham Mott, Director of Strategy, LINK:
For all this evidence of British merchants pulling customers back to cash, European data points the other way — at least at first sight. The European Central Bank’s survey on the use of cash by companies (August 2026, 8,205 firms across the euroThe name of the European single currency adopted by the European Council at the meeting held in Madrid on 15-16 December 1995. See ECU. More area) shows acceptance holding at 92%, with nine in ten accepters planning to keep taking cash for the next five years. Yet a troubling trend emerges in the same survey: 25% of companies have implemented measures in the past year to encourage digital payments or reduce cash — acquiring cashless tills or cutting the number that accept cash (37% of firms that acted), and promoting or advertising them (30%). Self-checkout compounds the shift: 13% of firms have terminals, and only 52% of the devices accept cash. Behind the shift, the share of non-accepting firms citing difficulty depositing or withdrawing cash jumped from 22% in 2024 to 35% in 2026.
The two surveys should not be read as a geographic split. LINK measures consumer experience — a twice-yearly YouGov panel of 2,100+ UK adults; the ECB surveys companies by telephone, weighted by employment, covering only firms with at least one employee, so the sole traders who dominate Britain’s encouragement data are excluded by design. And it asks only about nudges towards digital, never towards cash. Merchants everywhere are steering payment choice; each dataset simply catches a different end of the tug-of-war.
Payment choice is not just a consumer-driven drift. It is actively steered, by cost structures at least as much as by customer preference. In the UK, access to cash is regulated, but acceptance remains voluntary — the Treasury Committee has called for acceptance to be monitored, not just access. If merchants are entitled to nudge, the public should still have the final word, and that word is only meaningful while cash remains genuinely usable in the shops of the communities that need it most.
Whether the merchant-led nudge is a passing phase or the start of a durable countertrend, the next Cash Index waves will tell. As long as high prices keep squeezing household budgets, the algorithm behind it — no card fees on the merchant’s side, visible spending on the shopper’s — will likely keep producing the same result.
The latest wave of the LINK Cash Index tells a story few would have predicted: more than half of UK shoppers (54%) have visited a business in the past eight weeks that encouraged them to pay in cash — through signs saying a shop accepts or prefers cash, or staff asking directly. And it works: three-quarters of those asked completed their purchase with notes and coins.
The nudging is concentrated precisely where the economics of cash bite hardest for the seller: cafés and restaurants (22% of encounters), independent shops (19%), hairdressers and beauty salons (16%) and outdoor markets (12%), with pubs and retail chains far behind. It is happening against a falling tide — cash withdrawals have fallen steadily since before the pandemic, £36 billion in the first half of 2026 against £57 billion in the same period of 2019 — but slowest in the rural and less affluent communities where independents ask for cash.
LINK’s research found that 77% of UK small and medium-sized retailers accept cash, that 46% of their in-person transactions are cash-based, and that nearly half of those businesses actively encourage its use — to avoid card fees (55%), improve liquidity (50%) and speed up transactions (49%). And shoppers are complying: the share of consumers naming cash as their preferred way to pay rose from 13% in March to 15% in September.
The backdrop is an economy in which every pound counts. UK consumer price inflation rose to 3.5% in September 2026, up from 3.1% in August, with motor fuel inflation at its highest since August 2022. High prices have not gone away — they have become a standing feature of household arithmetic. LINK’s consumer research finds cash is the payment people consider most reassuring for staying within a budget and understanding what their shopping really costs. As LINK’s Nick Quin puts it, people on lower incomes “rely more heavily or entirely on cash to budget” — exactly the customers of the cafés, markets and salons asking for cash.
That pressure is not uniquely British. This autumn, protests over the cost of living have swept across Europe and beyond.
For all this evidence of British merchants pulling customers back to cash, European data points the other way — at least at first sight. The European Central Bank’s survey on the use of cash by companies (August 2026, 8,205 firms across the euro area) shows acceptance holding at 92%, with nine in ten accepters planning to keep taking cash for the next five years. Yet a troubling trend emerges in the same survey: 25% of companies have implemented measures in the past year to encourage digital payments or reduce cash — acquiring cashless tills or cutting the number that accept cash (37% of firms that acted), and promoting or advertising them (30%). Self-checkout compounds the shift: 13% of firms have terminals, and in 48% of the devices accepts cash. Behind the shift, the share of non-accepting firms citing difficulty depositing or withdrawing cash jumped from 22% in 2024 to 35% in 2026.
The two surveys should not be read as a geographic split. LINK measures consumer experience — a twice-yearly YouGov panel of 2,100+ UK adults; the ECB surveys companies by telephone, weighted by employment, covering only firms with at least one employee, so the sole traders who dominate Britain’s encouragement data are excluded by design. And it asks only about nudges towards digital, never towards cash. Merchants everywhere are steering payment choice; each dataset simply catches a different end of the tug-of-war.
Payment choice is not just a consumer-driven drift. It is actively steered, by cost structures at least as much as by customer preference. In the UK, access to cash is regulated, but acceptance remains voluntary — the Treasury Committee has called for acceptance to be monitored, not just access. If merchants are entitled to nudge, the public should still have the final word, and that word is only meaningful while cash remains genuinely usable in the shops of the communities that need it most.
Whether the merchant-led nudge is a passing phase or the start of a durable countertrend, the next Cash Index waves will tell. As long as high prices keep squeezing household budgets, the algorithm behind it — no card fees on the merchant’s side, visible spending on the shopper’s — will likely keep producing the same result.