July twenty third, twenty twenty six by Liz Everett Krisberg, Head of Bank of America Institute and David Michael Tinsley, Senior Economist, Bank of America Institute
Bar chart showing year-over-year growth in point-of-sale credit and debit card spending in U S FIFA World Cup 2026™ host cities from June 10 to July 20. Non-local consumers drove stronger spending growth than overall consumers across all categories. Total card spending increased about five percent overall and thirteen point five percent among non-local consumers. Restaurant spending rose about six percent overall and nine percent among non-locals. Retail spending increased about three point five percent overall and eleven percent among non-locals.
What a final! After 104 total matches, Spain was crowned champion of the FIFA World Cup 2026™. While some may be disappointed their team didn’t take home the trophy, the tournament was ultimately a successful celebration of the Beautiful Game.
Looking across the entire tournament, we can now take a final measure of its impact on spending in host cities. Bank of America aggregated credit and debit card data shows in-person spending rose five percent Y o Y across the cities that hosted matches. Perhaps unsurprisingly, restaurants and bars saw some of the largest gains, with spending particularly supported by visitors traveling to attend the games. It’s worth bearing in mind our data only includes domestic U S visitors and when we factor in foreign fans coming to the cities the numbers are likely even higher.
While the tournament has come to an end, the story doesn’t stop there. Explore more sports-related insights in this recent episode of Global Research Unlocked.
Selected Bank of America transaction data is used to inform the macroeconomic views expressed in this report and should be considered in the context of other economic indicators and publicly available information. In certain instances, the data may provide directional and/or predictive value. The data used is not comprehensive; it is based on aggregated and anonymized selections of Bank of America data and may reflect a degree of selection bias and limitations on the data available.
Any payments data represents aggregated spend from U S Retail, Preferred, Small Business and Wealth Management clients with a deposit account or credit card. Aggregated spend include total credit card, debit card, A C H, wires, bill pay, business/peer-to-peer, cash, and checks.
Any household consumer deposit data based on Bank of America internal data is derived by anonymizing and aggregating data from Bank of America consumer deposit accounts in the U S and analyzing that data at a highly aggregated level. Whenever median household savings and checking balances are quoted, the data is based on a fixed cohort of households that had a consumer deposit account (checking and/or savings account) for all months from January two thousand nineteen through the most current month of data shown.
Transactions and spending associated with the FIFA World Cup two thousand twenty six™ are based on data aggregated point-of-sale credit and debit card spending in C B S A's (core based statistical areas) associated with tournament stadiums.
Additional information about the methodology used to aggregate the data is available upon request.
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