How to Spend Bitcoin in 2026: What You Can Buy and Where
The practical ways to spend bitcoin in 2026: who takes it directly, Lightning at Square tills, gift cards for Amazon and Uber, fees, and who has stopped.
Spending bitcoin is easier in 2026 than it has ever been, and good advice about it is harder to find. Most “what can you buy with bitcoin” lists still send you to Whole Foods, Starbucks and Expedia. None of them take it any more. Meanwhile, around a million Square sellers in the US started accepting bitcoin this year, most of them without lifting a finger, and hardly anyone has noticed.
This guide covers what actually works now. We checked every merchant below and priced real purchases in October 2026, including the fees that decide whether spending is worth it.
The short version
| Way to spend | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Pay a merchant directly | Square sellers in the US, a few online shops | Patchy, and often Lightning only |
| Buy a gift card with bitcoin | Amazon, groceries, Uber, food delivery, travel | One extra step, and cards are country-specific |
| Use a crypto debit card | Anywhere that takes Visa or Mastercard | Sign-up, conversion fees, availability varies |
| Sell it and spend the cash | Rent, cars, anything big | Exchange account, bank transfer, takes days |
Most people who spend bitcoin regularly use a mix: direct payment where it’s offered, and gift cards for the big everyday brands that don’t take crypto.
Can you actually spend bitcoin?
Yes, in three ways.
Directly, where the shop accepts bitcoin at checkout or at the till. This is the purest version and the least common.
Indirectly, by turning bitcoin into something the shop already accepts. A gift card or a crypto debit card does this. You pay in bitcoin, and the shop receives an ordinary payment.
By converting it, selling bitcoin on an exchange and spending the money from your bank account. That isn’t really spending bitcoin, but for large purchases it’s often the practical route.
Where you can pay with bitcoin directly
Square sellers in the US
This is the biggest change in years. On 30 March 2026, Square switched bitcoin payments on by default for eligible sellers in the US, and by May around a million of them could accept it. That means a lot of cafés, salons, food trucks and corner shops now take bitcoin without ever having decided to.
It works over Lightning, bitcoin’s fast payment network. At the till, the seller shows a QR code (or, on newer Square terminals, you can tap your phone) and you pay from any Lightning wallet, including Cash App. Payments settle in seconds. There are some limits: up to $600 per transaction, it isn’t available to sellers in New York, and most sellers receive dollars rather than bitcoin.
If your local café uses Square, ask whether they take bitcoin. There’s a good chance the option is already there.
Steak ‘n Shake
The burger chain has taken bitcoin over Lightning at its US restaurants since May 2025. You scan a QR code at the till, and the company has said it pays lower fees than on cards.
Newegg
The electronics retailer still accepts bitcoin through BitPay, but only on the desktop site. It doesn’t work in the app, for pre-orders or for subscriptions, and refunds come back as a Newegg gift card rather than as bitcoin.
Travala
Travala sells hotels, flights and activities and accepts bitcoin along with dozens of other coins. For travel, it’s the most established direct option.
Online shops using BitPay, BTCPay and Lightning
Plenty of smaller online shops accept bitcoin through payment processors like BitPay, BTCPay Server or Strike. Shopify’s built-in crypto option only takes USDC, so a Shopify shop that accepts bitcoin is using one of these add-ons. You’ll usually see a “pay with crypto” or bitcoin option at checkout.
Finding places near you
BTC Map lists more than 27,000 merchants worldwide that accept bitcoin, with over half verified in the past year. It doesn’t include most of the new Square sellers, so the real number in the US is much higher.
We also keep merchant directories of businesses that accept crypto directly in the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Argentina and more.
Places to spend bitcoin when you travel
Lugano in Switzerland has the densest scene in Europe. Its Plan ₿ programme lists more than 360 merchants that take bitcoin over Lightning.
El Salvador is the place everyone thinks of, but it has changed. Since a law change in January 2025, businesses no longer have to accept bitcoin, and a university survey found only 8% of people used it for purchases in 2024. You’ll still find places that take it, especially in the beach towns, but don’t plan a trip around paying in bitcoin.
Who doesn’t accept bitcoin any more
Older lists are full of these. Save yourself the trip.
| Merchant | What happened |
|---|---|
| Expedia | Stopped accepting bitcoin in 2018 |
| Starbucks | Only ever through the Bakkt app, which closed in 2023 |
| Whole Foods | Only ever through the SPEDN app, which shut down in March 2026 |
| Tesla | Suspended bitcoin in 2021. Dogecoin works for some merchandise |
| Amazon | Has never accepted bitcoin |
| Coinbase Commerce | The merchant payment service closed in March 2026 |
Microsoft, AT&T, Overstock and Twitch all accepted bitcoin at some point. We couldn’t confirm any of them still do, so check at checkout before you count on it.
Spending bitcoin through gift cards
Direct acceptance is growing, but the shops most people use every week still don’t take bitcoin. Amazon doesn’t. Neither does Uber, DoorDash, Target or Apple. Gift cards bridge that gap: you pay for the card in bitcoin, and the shop receives an ordinary gift card payment.
On SpendCrypto that covers more than 3,000 brands across dozens of countries. In the US alone, it includes:
- Shopping: Amazon, Best Buy, Target, The Home Depot, Lowe’s
- Food and rides: Uber, Uber Eats, DoorDash
- Travel: Airbnb, Hotels.com, Delta, Chevron and Texaco for fuel
- Apps and games: Apple, Google Play, Steam, Roblox
For mobile data abroad, there are travel eSIMs you can pay for the same way.
How it works
- Pick a brand and amount from the gift card catalogue.
- Check out with your email address. You don’t need to create an account.
- Choose Bitcoin and send the exact amount shown before the countdown ends.
- Once the payment confirms, your card appears on the order page and arrives by email.
What it costs
We priced a few cards at checkout in October 2026:
| Card | Price in bitcoin | Price in stablecoins |
|---|---|---|
| $100 Amazon.com | 0.00122 BTC | 101 USDT |
| $100 Apple Gift Card (US) | 0.00123 BTC | 102 USDT |
| $50 DoorDash | 0.00061 BTC | 50 USDT |
Some cards sell at face value and some carry a small markup, and checkout always shows the exact amount before you pay. The network fee comes on top, and it’s covered below.
There’s more detail for specific brands in our guides to Amazon, Uber and Apple gift cards, and country guides for the US, UK, Germany, UAE, Australia and Argentina.
Crypto debit cards
A crypto card looks like a normal Visa or Mastercard. When you pay, the card provider sells the right amount of your bitcoin and the shop receives local currency. That makes it the most flexible option, because it works anywhere cards do.
The trade-offs are that you need an account with the card provider, there’s usually a conversion spread or fee on every purchase, and availability changes often by country. Several well-known cards have paused sign-ups or dropped regions in the past year. If you go this route, read the fee page carefully and check that the card is open to new customers where you live.
Selling bitcoin and spending the cash
For rent, a car or a house deposit, most people sell bitcoin on an exchange and spend the money from their bank. Some car dealers and property sellers accept bitcoin directly, but they’re rare, and on a large purchase the seller usually converts it straight away anyway.
What it costs to spend bitcoin
The network fee depends on how busy bitcoin is, and right now it’s very quiet. When we checked in October 2026, a standard bitcoin payment needed a fee of about 1 to 2 satoshis per virtual byte, which works out to roughly 12 to 23 cents. For perspective, fees briefly passed $50 for the same transaction around the April 2024 halving.
A new bitcoin block arrives about every 10 minutes, so an on-chain payment usually confirms within 10 to 30 minutes.
Lightning payments, like the ones at Square tills, settle in seconds and usually cost a fraction of a cent.
SpendCrypto takes on-chain bitcoin, not Lightning. At today’s fees that’s cheap, but it’s worth checking your wallet’s fee estimate before you send. If fees spike, paying with a stablecoin on a cheap network, or topping up SpendCredits once and buying several cards from that balance, keeps costs down.
Should you spend bitcoin or hold it?
That’s a personal call, and plenty of people do both. A common approach is to keep long-term savings separate from a smaller spending balance, and to spend from that balance on things you’d buy anyway. Some people keep the spending balance in a stablecoin so the price doesn’t move between top-ups. Our guide to spending crypto without keeping your whole stack on an exchange lays out a simple setup.
Common questions
What can you buy with bitcoin?
Almost anything, but usually not directly. You can pay directly at Square sellers in the US, Steak ‘n Shake, Newegg, Travala and thousands of smaller merchants listed on BTC Map. For big brands like Amazon, Target, Uber and Apple, you buy a gift card with bitcoin and spend that.
Does Amazon accept bitcoin?
No, and it never has. The usual way to spend bitcoin on Amazon is to buy an Amazon gift card with bitcoin and add it to your Amazon balance. Make sure the card matches your Amazon store, because US cards only work on Amazon.com.
Can I pay with bitcoin using Cash App?
Yes, at shops that accept Lightning payments, including Square sellers in the US. Scan the seller’s bitcoin QR code with Cash App and confirm the payment. Cash App can also send bitcoin on-chain to a regular bitcoin address, which is how you’d pay a gift card order.
How long does a bitcoin payment take?
Lightning payments take seconds. On-chain payments wait for a block, which arrives about every 10 minutes, so most confirm in 10 to 30 minutes.
What’s the cheapest way to spend bitcoin?
At a shop that takes Lightning, pay over Lightning. Otherwise, gift cards that sell at face value paid with a normal on-chain fee are close to free at current fee levels. If you’re making lots of small purchases, prepaying a balance once avoids paying a network fee every time.
Where to start
If you’re in the US, the easiest first step is local: ask the next Square seller you visit whether they take bitcoin, and pay over Lightning.
For everything else, start with what you already spend money on every week. Groceries, delivery, rides and the Amazon order you were going to place anyway are all in the gift card catalogue, and paying for one with bitcoin takes a few minutes.