Uber has started asking riders in Kenya to add a Visa card to the app. A push notification received in Nairobi on Friday 4 September 2026 reads: “Pay with Visa! Add your Visa card and enjoy a seamless payment experience on Uber.” The add payment screen in the app now shows the Visa logo under Cards, next to Mastercard and American Express.
Uber stopped taking Visa cards in Kenya at the end of last year. Since December there’s been an in-app notice reading: “Visa cards are no longer accepted by Uber in Kenya. Please add a different payment method.” We covered the removal at the time.
Uber has not published anything about Visa coming back.
Why Uber dropped Visa
Uber gave one reason in January: cost. “Payment costs globally are on the rise, which impacts businesses and their consumers,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCabal on 13 January. “We regularly review our payment methods on a market-by-market basis.”
A card payment costs the merchant money every time it runs. Business Daily put the charge at 1.5% to 3.5% of each transaction, split between the bank that issued the card, the card network and the payment processor. The change applied only to Kenya and only to Visa. Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, M-Pesa, Airtel Money, cash and gift cards kept working.
Visa said it wanted the block lifted. “We are in touch with the Uber team and are working to resolve this as soon as possible,” a Visa spokesperson said on 15 January. Neither company gave a timeline.
Whatever was agreed between January and September has not been made public. Uber has not said whether Visa’s fees changed, whether it moved Visa transactions to a Kenyan processor, or what else happened.
Why Visa matters
Visa has the largest card scheme in Kenya by cardholders, which is why the block hit harder than a Mastercard block would have. It also caught the M-Pesa GlobalPay virtual card, which runs on Visa. We explained how that card works in 2022. It should work on Uber again now, though we have not tested it.
Visa was once the card Uber pushed hardest in Kenya. In September 2017 the two companies gave riders every sixth trip free, up to KES 1,000, if the first five were paid with a Barclays, National Bank of Kenya or KCB Visa card. M-Pesa did not become a native payment option for rides until May 2023, which we covered when Safaricom announced it that August.
How to add a Visa card
- Open the Uber app
- Go to Wallet
- Tap Add payment method and choose Cards.
- Enter the card number, expiry and CVV.
The same screen also lists PayPal, Airtel Money and Barter, Flutterwave’s wallet app, which Uber has accepted for Uber Cash top-ups since June 2020.
The thing to watch is whether Uber or Visa says anything about the terms of the return. The removal in December came without an announcement, and so far the reinstatement has too. It is also Uber’s first payments change in Kenya since it closed Nigeria and Uganda on 2 September.
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