Small businesses across Latin America just gained a much easier way to accept card payments. Apple confirmed today that Tap to Pay on iPhone has launched in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Peru, expanding a feature that lets merchants take contactless payments using nothing but an iPhone and a supported app.
No extra hardware is required. A merchant doesn’t need a card reader, a bulky terminal, or any separate device plugged into their phone. They just open a compatible payment app, hold a customer’s card or phone near their own, and the transaction processes right there.
Six payment platforms are powering this rollout, though the mix varies by country. Mercado Pago handles things in Argentina. Colombia gets support from both SumUp and Symbiotic. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama all connect through Geopagos and Symbiotic, with Costa Rica additionally offering Visa Acceptance Solutions. The Dominican Republic pairs Azul with Visa Acceptance Solutions, and Peru rounds things out with SumUp alone. Whichever platform a merchant chooses, the feature accepts contactless cards from the major networks, including Amex, Mastercard, and Visa.
This didn’t happen overnight. Apple first unveiled Tap to Pay back in February 2022, launching it in the US with Stripe as the sole payment partner at the time. What started as a single-country pilot has quietly turned into something much bigger. More than four years later, the feature now works across 59 countries and regions worldwide, backed by upwards of 100 different payment service providers, a scale that would have seemed ambitious at launch.
Latin America in particular has become a meaningful growth market for contactless payments generally, and Apple’s timing here tracks with that shift. Cash still dominates plenty of transactions across the region, but mobile-first payment tools have been closing that gap fast, especially among smaller merchants who can’t easily justify the cost of traditional point-of-sale systems. Tap to Pay removes that barrier almost entirely since it works with hardware most vendors already carry in their pocket.
Apple didn’t say whether additional countries in the region are next, though the pace of expansion suggests more announcements are likely before long. Merchants and developers curious about current availability can check Apple’s full country and provider list directly through its developer site.
