QR Payments in Oman Grew 133% Last Year. The Central Bank Just Made Them Even Cheaper for Your Local Shop.

Next time you tap your phone to pay for shawarma or a taxi ride in Oman, the person on the other side of the counter is paying less to accept that payment than they were two months ago. On July 1, 2026, the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) quietly cut the fee merchants pay on QR "Scan and Pay" transactions and waived a batch of other digital transfer fees, right as Omanis were already abandoning cash faster than almost anyone expected.

Key Takeaways

• CBO cut the maximum Merchant Service Fee on QR "Scan and Pay" payments from 0.75% to 0.50% of the transaction, capped at RO 2, effective July 1, 2026.
• Local digital transfer fees for individuals and SMEs, several Maal domestic card fees, and part of the Wage Protection System fee were waived or capped the same day.
• QR code transaction volume jumped from about 195,900 in 2020 to 170 million in 2024, then grew a further 133.5% in 2025, the fastest of any digital payment channel.
• Overall digital payment activity in Oman grew 76% in 2025 versus 2024, according to CBO data.
• The reform targets the exact friction point that keeps small shops and drivers on cash: the cost of accepting a card or QR payment.

What Actually Changed on July 1

Fee cuts rarely make headlines, but this one is worth reading twice, because it lands directly on the businesses Omanis deal with every day: the corner grocer, the taxi driver, the delivery rider.

CBO Governor Ahmed Al Musalmi framed it plainly: "By removing cost barriers for retail customers and SMEs, we are encouraging wider adoption of secure, efficient and accessible digital payment solutions," he said, describing the package as a milestone in making digital payments Oman's preferred way to pay (Oman Observer).

Why the Guy Running Your Corner Shop Actually Cares

A 0.25 percentage point cut sounds small until you run it through a real till. A shop doing RO 3,000 a month in QR sales used to hand over roughly RO 22.50 in fees; now it hands over about RO 15. That is not life-changing money for a supermarket, but for a one-person kiosk or a taxi driver running payments through a phone instead of a card machine, every rial saved is a rial that stays in a very thin margin.

It also removes a genuinely annoying daily problem. Taxi drivers and delivery riders in Oman have long struggled to carry small change, and QR payments were designed to solve exactly that, according to reporting on the country's cashless push (Oman Observer). A cheaper fee removes the last excuse a small merchant had for sticking to cash-only.

The Bigger Trend: How Oman Got Here

The fee cut did not come out of nowhere. QR payment volumes in Oman went from about 195,900 transactions in 2020 to 4.9 million in 2022, 40 million in 2023, and 170 million in 2024, before growing a further 133.5% in 2025, the fastest growth rate of any digital payment method the CBO tracks. Electronic payment gateway transactions alone rose from 67 million to 168 million in a single year, part of an overall 76% jump in digital payment activity in 2025 (Oman Observer). That earlier surge is the subject of a closer look at how Oman quietly stopped using cash. The fee cut is less a new trend than the CBO trying to keep pace with one already running ahead of it.

Who Actually Makes This Happen

This is not a ministry press release; it is a regulator using the tools it actually controls. The CBO sets and revises fee ceilings across Oman's payment rails: the Real-Time Gross Settlement System for large transfers, the Automated Clearing House for everyday transfers, and the mobile-based instant payment system that handles QR and person-to-person payments. When the CBO caps a fee, banks and payment processors operating under its license have to comply immediately; there is no separate budget line or ministry sign-off needed, which is why this reform could take effect on a single date, July 1, 2026, with no phased rollout. The CBO has said it will keep watching adoption, cash usage, and cheque dependency through the rest of 2026 and may adjust further, which fits the Vision 2040 goal of a genuinely digital economy tracked on the site's own progress indicators page, not just a one-off announcement.

Why This Matters for Ordinary Omanis

If you have ever had a taxi driver or a small shop wave you off with "no change, sorry" or quietly push you toward paying more just to use a card, this reform is aimed squarely at that moment. Cheaper acceptance costs give small merchants one less reason to resist digital payments, and a waived transfer fee means sending money to a friend or a landlord through your banking app no longer costs you anything extra. None of this is dramatic on its own. But stacked on top of a payment system that already carried 170 million QR transactions in 2024 and grew faster still in 2025, it is the kind of unglamorous regulatory nudge that decides whether cash disappears from daily life in Oman by accident or by design.