Sicily payment methods

It’s been like 5 years, but Sicily was weirdly cash driven in my experience. And in a way where people expected you to have cash, and the appropriate amount of cash only. Getting change back was always often a comical pantomime expressing an array of inconvenience or outright annoyance. At remote sites, they didn’t even have change at all. It was pretty funny mostly.

I’m sure it’s better, particularly in the cities but the difference between the rest of Europe was striking in this regard.

We were in Sicily in April and were able to use cards almost everywhere- I think cash was preferred a few small places but I can't remember where. I would carry a bit just in case but mostly you can use card.

We had the same experience as Cat

We were there a month ago. I used Apple pay everywhere. I paid for a fee small things (coffee/gelato) so we had smaller bills, but everyone seemed to accept digital payments.

You can use Apple Pay and Amex at 70-80% of places. Fairly often they will charge you 3% for not using cash but it's an option

Times have changed since the time Garibaldi landed in Marsala on May 11, 1860 with his Expedition of One thousand men in his effort to unify Italy. I remember reading he also had trouble using ApplePay. Since then Italy passed a law in June 2022 which requires all merchants to accept digital payments regardless of transaction amount.

Interesting. We were there in May 2023. Cash was king. We had to replenish our cash supply several times. We had puppet shows and tours that were cash only as well as the proverbial broken credit card machine.

If they refuse digital payments you can report them to the police. The law is clear.
(If you don’t speak Italian, you can use Google Translate to read the articles below)

https://www.corriere.it/cook/news/cards/pos-obbligatorio-come-comportarsi-se-non-ci-fanno-pagare-la-carta-credito/cosa-fare-quando-viene-rifiutato-pagamento-elettronico.shtml

https://qonto.com/it/blog/strumenti-di-pagamento/carte/obbligo-pos

https://www.consumatori.it/news/cosa-fare-se-non-ti-fanno-pagare-col-pos/