Visa, a world leader in digital payments, today released new data from Visa Business and Economic Insights (VBEI), The Great Indoors: How the “Couch” Is Redefining Consumer Spending Habits, showing how the “Couch Economy” is reshaping consumer spending in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as more everyday purchases move online and in-app.
The report highlights the growing role of digital channels in routine purchases, entertainment, and services. In the UAE, online and in-app payments now account for 55% of domestic payment volume, up from 35% in 2019, underscoring how strongly this shift is taking hold locally.
The trend is also visible in payment frequency. In 2026, 25.7% of active UAE cards made 10 or more online or in-app payments per month, compared with 4.5% in 2018. For comparison, the equivalent figures were 25.4% in the US and 27.8% in the UK.
Food delivery shows how online and in-app spending has moved from occasional convenience to an everyday habit. The share of UAE cards active on food delivery apps increased from around 2% in 2018 to nearly 30% in 2026, with most of this growth coming from everyday spenders rather than higher-spending cardholders.
A similar shift is evident in entertainment habits. The report finds that the share of UAE cards with streaming and pay-TV subscriptions remains higher than the share of cards with cinema and concert spending, suggesting a growing preference for at-home digital entertainment.
Mohamed Bardastani, Visa’s Principal Economist for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “The rise of the couch economy reflects the UAE’s digital advancement and consumers’ growing expectations for convenience and seamless experiences. While technology has helped accelerate this trend, our research suggests that these expectations are increasingly shaping how consumers spend. As online and in-app payments become a bigger part of everyday life, digital payments are helping enable the convenient, connected commerce experiences consumers now expect.”
Methodology
VBEI’s analysis is based on anonymized VisaNet transaction data and examines spending trends across six markets: Australia, Brazil, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. The research evaluates consumer engagement across digital commerce, subscriptions, food delivery, and other categories associated with home-centered consumption. Domestic payment volume refers to transactions on domestically issued cards at domestic merchants. Unless otherwise noted, all analyses of VisaNet data in the report are based on Visa credit, debit and prepaid card transactions.
