Apple Pay Finally Comes To Walmart Next Week (But There's A Catch)

Apple Pay has been available for over a decade now, but one of the biggest opponents of this, and other tap-to-pay options, has been Walmart. But after years of excluding this technology and even doubling down with its own payment solutions, the company just announced that Near Field Communication (NFC) payments — tap to pay — are coming to certain stores starting next week, making it even easier for you to buy affordable Walmart gadgets. The only downside, though, is that a full rollout will take several months, as full tap-to-pay integration isn't expected until mid-2027. So don't go running to your local Walmart or Sam's Club just yet without your physical card or, imagine, cash.

According to a Walmart press release, tap to pay will be added to its payment options at select stores and Sam's Club locations starting August 24, 2026. All U.S. stores and clubs will offer this convenience to customers by the end of 2026, and it will be added to fuel stations by the middle of 2027. Walmart will continue to offer other payment options, like cash, credit card, or Walmart Pay, which, until now, used to be the more "convenient" way to pay with a phone, as customers could see purchases, receipts, and access Walmart+ fuel savings.

Walmart has been an advocate against Apple Pay and other contactless payment systems for years. It's unclear what changed with Walmart to finally decide to support Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other contactless payments, but this represents a huge win for customers who can now shop more conveniently and more privately. In 2025, it told 9to5Mac that it didn't accept Near Field Communication (NFC) payments, as it had, instead implemented "convenient solutions, such as Walmart Pay, that provide our customers easy, touchless payments on any smartphone." However, the true reason is that with a platform like Walmart Pay, it's easier for the company to create an online profile of the customer than with a contactless payment.

With Apple Pay, every purchase is completely anonymous, as the merchant doesn't get the actual data of your credit card or your information. This way, the company can't target you with specific ads, nor sell that data to other companies. This practice has been fairly common for years, and, in 2012, The New York Times wrote a story about how Target used profiles like this, which could be as certain as knowing a woman was likely pregnant based on her purchases.