Best Payment Gateways for UAE E-Commerce in 2026: Fees, Payouts, BNPL

For a UAE online store in October 2026, the published card rates sit between 2.25% and 2.9% plus a fixed AED 0.50 to AED 1 per transaction, before 5% VAT on the fee. Stripe, Shopify Payments, WooPayments and Mamo all list 2.9% + AED 1 as their starting rate for UAE cards. Ziina lists 2.6% + AED 1. Telr drops to 2.25% + AED 0.50 once a store clears AED 50,000 a month, but charges a monthly fee below that. The real differences are the fixed fee, the monthly fee, the surcharge on international cards, and how many business days the money takes to reach your account. Tabby and Tamara, the two buy now pay later providers, publish no merchant fee at all. Every figure below was read from the provider’s own page on 9 October 2026 and will move, so treat it as the starting point for a quote.

Key takeaways

• At 2.9% + AED 1, Stripe, Shopify Payments, WooPayments and Mamo’s free plan cost the same on a domestic card sale. The choice between them is about platform fit, settlement and surcharges, not the headline rate.
• The fixed AED 1 is the quiet cost on small baskets. On an AED 40 order it is 2.5% on its own, which is why Telr’s AED 0.50 and Mamo’s Premium AED 0.80 matter to low-ticket stores.
• Stripe, Shopify Payments and Mamo all settle in 5 business days as standard. Telr’s documentation describes T+2 as the default, but that page does not say it applies to UAE accounts.
• Shopify’s UAE help pages, read on 9 October 2026, no longer carry the “early access” wording they had in September. A store on a local gateway still pays Shopify’s third-party fee of 2%, 1%, 0.6% or 0.2% by plan.
• Jaywan, the UAE’s national card scheme, was officially launched on 20 July 2026 and works online. Only one pricing page in this review, Mamo’s, names it as an accepted method.

What a payment gateway costs in the UAE right now

The table shows the published rate for a UAE-issued card paid in AED, the extra for an international card, the monthly fee and the standard settlement time, as stated on each provider’s own page on 9 October 2026. Where a provider does not publish something, the cell says so. All of these fees attract 5% VAT, which Telr and Ziina state on their pricing pages.

Telr’s lowest band, called Startup, is AED 249 a month with 0% + AED 0 per transaction for stores under AED 10,000 a month, a subscription rather than a rate. PayTabs’ pricing page defaulted to Saudi Arabia, showed mada at 1% and credit cards at 2.25% + SAR 1 under a note that the prices are “part of a testing phase”, and gave no UAE figures, although its UAE entity, PayTabs Payment Services Provider LLC, is named on its retail page with trade licence 718365. Checkout.com says it prices “based on your business profile and risk category”, Amazon Payment Services shows its UAE card rates only as an image, and Network International’s site blocked our automated check, so those three rates come from a sales conversation.

Stripe, Shopify Payments and WooPayments on the same month of sales

Take a Dubai perfume store selling AED 30,000 a month on UAE cards across 200 orders, an average basket of AED 150. The arithmetic uses only the published rates above and excludes VAT and international surcharges.

• Stripe at 2.9% + AED 1 comes to AED 870 plus AED 200 in fixed fees, AED 1,070 for the month.
• Shopify Payments on Basic is the same 2.9% + AED 1, AED 1,070, with no third-party transaction fee because Shopify’s own processor is in use.
• WooPayments at 2.90% + Dh 1 is also AED 1,070, and WooCommerce adds no platform fee on top.
• Shopify Basic with Telr instead of Shopify Payments costs Telr’s Small band (AED 99 a month, 2.35% + AED 0.50) at AED 904, plus Shopify’s 2% third-party fee of AED 600, so AED 1,504.

That last line is the one Dubai founders miss when they pick Shopify and then bolt on a local gateway. Shopify’s UAE pricing page lists the third-party fee at 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, charged on top of whatever the gateway takes, so Telr-on-Basic costs about AED 434 a month more than Shopify Payments at this volume. We walked through the platform side of that choice in the Shopify versus WooCommerce comparison for the UAE; the gateway maths is the half that changes with volume.

Shopify’s UAE requirements page accepts four business types, Sole Establishment, Free Zone Sole Establishment, LLC and Free Zone LLC, and requires “a checking account with a bank based in the UAE, in AED currency”; non-profits are not eligible. The payouts page states “the minimum settlement time is 5 business days” with a minimum payout of AED 20, and the payment methods page lists Visa, Mastercard and Maestro plus Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay, adding that Shopify Payments “is only available for online selling in the UAE”, so a store with a physical till still needs a separate POS acquirer. Our Shopify development team in Dubai sets the payment configuration up during the build rather than in launch week.

WooPayments lists the United Arab Emirates among its 38 supported countries with one restriction: “Businesses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) do not have access to the Individual account type”, so a freelancer without a licensed entity cannot use it. Its UAE fee row reads 2.90% + Dh 1, +2.00% for international payments and Dhs 60 per dispute, refunded if won. That surcharge is the sharp edge: a store in Jumeirah selling to visiting Saudi and European shoppers pays 4.9% + AED 1 on those cards through WooPayments against 3.9% + AED 1 through Stripe and 2.75% to 2.95% through Telr. The plugin, version 11.2.0 on 8 October 2026, is maintained by WooCommerce itself, which is why our WooCommerce development service keeps the checkout on a maintenance cycle.

Telr, Mamo and Ziina for stores that want a UAE provider

Telr publishes four bands. Entry, for AED 10,000 to 24,999 a month, is AED 199 a month at 2.45% + AED 1. Small, for AED 25,000 to 49,999, is AED 99 a month at 2.35% + AED 0.50. Medium, from AED 50,000, has no monthly fee at 2.25% + AED 0.50. International cards add 0.50% on every band, every band includes Apple Pay and Tabby, and a valid trade licence is mandatory. At AED 100,000 a month across 600 orders, Telr Medium costs AED 2,550 against AED 3,500 on Stripe and AED 3,200 on Ziina, which is why Telr tends to win once the monthly fee disappears. One caveat: Telr’s WooCommerce plugin is downloaded from a GitHub release rather than the WordPress.org directory, so a developer manages its updates by hand.

Mamo’s pricing page is the clearest of the UAE providers. Growth is AED 0 a month at 2.9% + AED 1 on UAE cards and 3.4% + AED 1 on international cards, with 2% on top for non-AED charges. Premium is AED 99 a month at 2.7% + AED 0.80 and 3.2% + AED 0.80, with 1.5% on non-AED. Settlement is “5 business days” on both plans, same-day settlement costs an extra 0.75% on Growth or 0.5% on Premium, and each payout to a UAE bank costs AED 5. Mamo lists Visa, Mastercard, American Express, mada, Jaywan, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Tabby, and names Shopify and WooCommerce integrations. One line to read carefully: “Mamo Limited is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority”, the DIFC regulator, not the Central Bank of the UAE.

Ziina’s fees page, last updated 6 January 2026, charges 2.6% + AED 1 on every receiving channel, including its payment gateway, with an extra 1.5% “for non-AED currency and/or international cards”. There are no setup or monthly fees, chargebacks cost AED 98 a case, and the page states “Ziina Payment LLC is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE” without publishing a settlement time. For a Deira trading company that sells mostly on invoice and payment link with occasional web orders, 2.6% with no monthly fee usually beats Telr, because the volume never reaches the band where Telr’s monthly fee disappears.

Settlement times and what they do to cash flow

A gateway rate of 2.9% costs a store AED 2,900 on every AED 100,000. A five-business-day hold costs it the use of roughly a week of revenue, permanently, and that is the number that bites a growing store paying suppliers on delivery. Stripe’s payouts documentation lists the United Arab Emirates with an initial settlement timing of 5 business days, counts business days as Monday to Friday, and says a first payout “typically” completes within 7 to 14 days of the first live payment. Stripe charges nothing for the standard schedule and 1.5% with an AED 2 minimum for Instant Payouts “within minutes”; Mamo’s same-day option at 0.75% is cheaper, but it is same-day rather than minutes. Telr’s developer documentation says “By default Telr processes your settlements with a frequency of T+2 bank working days”, yet that page refers to IFSC codes and NRE accounts, which are Indian banking concepts, and never mentions the UAE or AED, so get the UAE cycle in writing. One issue we often see is a store modelling its cash flow on the gateway’s marketing page and discovering the real cycle in the merchant agreement after launch.

Apple Pay, Google Pay, mada and Jaywan coverage

Apple’s list of countries that support Apple Pay, published 30 September 2026, includes the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and Google’s page lists the United Arab Emirates for paying online or in apps. Stripe, Shopify Payments, Telr, Mamo and Ziina all name Apple Pay. Stripe’s documentation states that “Stripe accounts worldwide can accept Apple Pay payments with local currency settlement”, and that Elements and embedded Checkout need every domain registered in the Stripe dashboard, the step a developer forgets when a store moves from staging to the live domain, after which the Apple Pay button silently does not appear.

mada is a Saudi scheme, not a UAE one. The Saudi Central Bank describes it as “one of the national payment systems owned by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), which was launched in 1990”, with a mada E-Commerce service that “enables the use of cards in online payment transactions at e-commerce outlets through the 3D Secure protocol”. A UAE store needs mada only if it ships to Saudi customers paying with Saudi debit cards, in which case Mamo and PayTabs both list it. Jaywan is the UAE equivalent. Al Etihad Payments calls it “the UAE’s national card payment scheme” for “shopping online or tapping at a store”, and Khaleej Times reported on 22 July 2026 that the scheme “was officially launched on Monday”, which was 20 July. As banks issue Jaywan debit cards through late 2026, a checkout that cannot route a Jaywan-only card will start declining real UAE customers, so ask any gateway that does not list it.

Tabby and Tamara buy now pay later

Neither Tabby nor Tamara publishes its merchant fee, so the number in your contract is the only number. What both publish is the settlement model. Tabby’s business page says “Get paid upfront with no risk” and “Receive the full amount in days”, with Pay in 4 interest-free instalments and a Pay over time option of up to 12 payments. Tamara’s Shopify plugin page says the merchant will “receive full payment upfront” and that Tamara will “settle your accounts in full regardless of whether the customer has paid”, with settlements on Saturdays for amounts of SAR/AED 2,500 or more, weekly settlements on Tuesdays, and a SAR/AED 25 transfer fee on smaller weekly settlements. Tamara’s homepage states “Tamara FZE is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE”, and Tabby’s legal page names Tabby Payments LLC as licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE for its Tabby Cash service.

Both run plugins a developer can install without custom work: on WordPress.org, Tabby Checkout was at version 5.16.1, updated 7 October 2026, and Tamara Checkout at 1.9.9.23, updated 8 September 2026. Tabby’s page claims a 33% larger basket and 18% higher conversion for its merchants. Those are Tabby’s own marketing figures with no stated method or period, and we would not plan a budget on them. The practical case for BNPL in Dubai is narrower: electronics, furniture and fashion stores with baskets above a few hundred dirhams, where a four-way split changes whether the customer buys at all. For a store with an AED 80 average order, a BNPL fee on every order buys little.

What you need before a gateway will approve you

Every provider reviewed here requires a UAE trade licence, and most onboarding delays come from the licence, the bank account or the entity type rather than the technology. Stripe’s UAE verification page lists the supported entities as “Sole establishments, branches of sole establishments and free zone establishments” and “LLCs, branches of LLCs, and free zone LLCs”, and states “We cannot support users who do not have a trade license/permit”. Its supported-banks page adds that “Multi-member LLCs are required to use a business bank account only”, while sole establishments and single-member LLCs may use a personal one, and that a bank not on its list cannot receive payouts.

The regulatory frame is the Central Bank of the UAE’s Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation, published in the Official Gazette on 15 June 2021 and in force one month later, which licenses nine services including “merchant acquiring” and “payment aggregation”. That is why Ziina and Tamara cite a Central Bank licence, why Mamo cites a DFSA licence instead, and why a gateway that cites no regulator should be asked which licensed acquirer sits behind it. From a development perspective, the order that avoids a stalled launch is: open the business bank account in AED first, apply to the gateway with the licence and memorandum before the store is finished, and only then integrate, because a finished store with a gateway still “under review” is the most common reason a Dubai launch slips by a month. The same documents, plus a refund policy on the site, are what the cash on delivery guide says a courier will ask for, so prepare them once.

Where gateway projects go wrong

The expensive mistakes are rarely about the rate. A store that presents prices in USD to look international pays Stripe’s extra 1% or WooPayments’ extra 2% for currency conversion on every AED card, and a store that leaves international cards switched on without a fraud rule pays the surcharge and then the dispute fee, AED 60 at Stripe and WooPayments, AED 98 at Ziina, when a stolen card is used. Stripe never returns the original processing fee on a refund, so a 30% return rate on fashion quietly adds a few tenths of a percent to the effective rate. A redirect gateway that sends the customer off the store domain to pay loses more mobile shoppers than an on-page card form, and the fix is an on-site integration or a wallet button above the card form; we covered the recovery side in our abandoned cart recovery guide for UAE stores. Finally, do not sign a monthly-fee plan on projected volume. Telr’s Entry band at AED 199 a month plus 2.45% + AED 1 costs more than Ziina’s 2.6% + AED 1 at every volume inside its own AED 10,000 to 24,999 band, because the 0.15% saving on AED 25,000 is AED 37.50 against an AED 199 fee, and most new Dubai stores spend their first year in that band.

If you are deciding between Shopify Payments, WooPayments and a UAE gateway for a new or growing store, our e-commerce development team in Dubai can model the fees on your real order sizes and set the checkout, wallets and settlement up as part of the build.

Fees, settlement times and requirements were read on 9 October 2026 from the pricing, documentation and support pages of Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Telr, Mamo, Ziina, PayTabs, Checkout.com, Amazon Payment Services, Tabby and Tamara, the WordPress.org plugin API, Apple’s and Google’s availability pages, the Saudi Central Bank, Al Etihad Payments, Khaleej Times of 22 July 2026 and the Central Bank of the UAE’s press release of 17 July 2021. Figures are indicative, change without notice and exclude VAT unless stated; this is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. Cover photo: Mall of the Emirates, Dubai (8973609608) by Fabio Achilli from Milano, Italy, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).