Payments Used by UK Travel Sector Companies: Market Share (2026)
Detected Payments usage across 1,724 of 128,631 trading UK travel sector companies, with Stripe holding the largest detected share at 33.8% (582 companies).
Across 128,631 trading UK travel sector companies, 1,724 have a detectable Payments system. Stripe has the largest observed footprint at 33.8% (582), followed by PayPal at 29.8% (513), PayU at 25.6% (441) and Square at 12.2% (211).
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Employee size changes the ordering. PayPal is largest among Under 10 employees, with 35.8% of 838 companies, while Stripe leads both 10–50 employees at 32.9% of 799 companies and Over 50 employees at 42.5% of 87 companies.
The tail is broad but shallow: 15 systems are detected in total. Google Pay accounts for 1.9% (32), Worldpay 1.4% (24), Recharge 0.9% (16) and Opayo 0.7% (12), while 7 further systems cover 24 companies.
1,724
travel sector with detected Payments
Of 128,631 UK travel sector
1.3%
Detection rate
2026
15
Systems detected
In this category
33.8%
Leader share
Stripe
UK Travel Sector Payments market share
Payments compared
| System | UK Travel Sector | Share | Median headcount | London share | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | 582 | 33.8% | 10 | 18.4% | Small travel firms, largest footprint |
| PayPal | 513 | 29.8% | 8 | 22% | Micro travel firms, London-skewed |
| PayU | 441 | 25.6% | 10 | 12.2% | Small travel firms, lower London share |
| Square | 211 | 12.2% | 13 | 20.4% | Larger travel firms, London-skewed |
| Google Pay | 32 | 1.9% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Worldpay | 24 | 1.4% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Recharge | 16 | 0.9% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Opayo | 12 | 0.7% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Authorize.net | 11 | 0.6% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Plaid | 11 | 0.6% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Klarna | 9 | 0.5% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| GoCardless | 9 | 0.5% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Afterpay | 2 | 0.1% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Ideal4Finance | 1 | 0.1% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
| Codeweavers | 1 | 0.1% | — | — | View these companies in Firmbase → |
Systems detected below the page threshold appear with counts only; their full lists are available in the Firmbase app.
Market leader by size
The leading Payments system shifts with company size: among UK Travel Sector with under 10 employees, PayPal leads at 35.8% of the 838 with a detectable system; among UK Travel Sector with 10–50 employees, Stripe leads at 32.9% of the 799 with a detectable system; and among UK Travel Sector with over 50 employees, Stripe leads at 42.5% of the 87 with a detectable system.
Under 10 employees
35.8% of band
Under 10 employees covers 838 companies with a detectable Payments system, making it the largest employee band. PayPal has the largest share at 35.8%, with Stripe, PayU and Square among the profiled alternatives across the wider market.
10–50 employees
32.9% of band
10–50 employees covers 799 companies, close to the micro-employer band but with a different leader. Stripe has the largest share at 32.9%, while PayPal, PayU and Square remain visible competitors across the market.
Over 50 employees
42.5% of band
Over 50 employees is a smaller band at 87 companies. Stripe has a larger share here than in the 10–50 band, at 42.5%, leaving the rest split among other detected systems.
How Payments usage is detected
Company data
Detected companies are joined to UK Companies House records and XBRL accounts data. Revenue and headcount figures come from the most recent filed accounts; where the company has not filed, values are estimated using a model trained on filed history and peer benchmarks and are labelled as estimates.
Detection
Firmbase crawls the public website of actively-trading UK companies and fingerprints the technologies present: tracking scripts, embedded forms, chat widgets, CMS markers and similar signatures. A company is included in this list when one or more of the technology's signatures are found on its site; closely-related variants of the same product are grouped under one name. Detection covers what is visible on the public web — a company using the technology purely internally, with no website footprint, will not appear. Counts are therefore a conservative floor, not a ceiling.
Freshness
Websites are re-crawled on a rolling basis and the underlying company data is refreshed from Companies House continuously; filings appear within days of submission. The list and its statistics are regenerated when the detected cohort moves meaningfully. You can see the last-updated timestamp near the top of the page.
All product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Firmbase is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any trademark owner.
UK Travel Sector by Payments
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Frequently asked questions
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