Every few months a headline declares QR codes dead or resurgent. The 2026 data is actually unambiguous: usage is still growing, payments have become the single largest use case, and physical placements — restaurants, packaging, payment counters — remain where scanning happens most. This post rounds up the current sourced numbers: market size, user counts, and scan behaviour, plus the caveats that keep the statistics honest. Every figure below lists source, geography, and reference period; for the full source-linked reference with outbound citations, see the QR code statistics guide.
Source table (source · geography · period · what it measures)
| Figure | Source | Geography | Period | Measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market $13.04B → $33.14B (20.5% CAGR) | Mordor Intelligence | Global | 2025 base, 2031 projection | Software + hardware + licensing market size |
| QR-payment value $14.3B → $61.7B | Grand View Research | Global | 2025 base, 2033 projection | Transaction value only — not comparable to Mordor totals |
| 89M US scanners (→102.6M by 2026) | Statista / eMarketer | United States | 2022 actual, 2026 estimate | Smartphone users who scanned |
| 68% scanned in past year | TEAM LEWIS 2025 (via Scanova roundup) | United States | 2025 survey | Consumer self-report |
| 91% US adults own smartphone | Pew Research | United States | Nov 2025 | Hardware base, not scan rate |
| 2.2B QR payment users | Juniper Research | Global | 2025 (vs 1.5B in 2021) | People who used QR to pay |
| UPI >18B txns/month | NPCI | India | Rolling current | Payment rail volume |
| Restaurants 58% top scan place | appy.to | Multi-country | Survey (see source) | Where consumers had scanned |
| 9 in 10 marketers used QR | Bitly Trends 2025 | Primarily US/marketers surveyed | 2025 | Marketer self-report |
**How to read this table:** analyst scopes differ (market size ≠ payment value ≠ scan counts). Never average columns. Methodology gaps: no public global scans-per-day census exists — vendor daily-scan claims are unverifiable marketing. Last reviewed: 24 September 2026.
The QR code market is still compounding
Mordor Intelligence puts the QR code market at **$13.04 billion in 2025**, growing to **$33.14 billion by 2031** — a 20.5% compound annual growth rate. Their scope spans software, hardware, and licensing across retail, advertising, payments and logistics.
Analyst scopes differ, which is why 2025 'totals' disagree. Grand View Research counts QR-payment transaction value separately and projects that segment alone from $14.3 billion (2025) to $61.7 billion by 2033. The shared signal is the direction: after tripling off the 2020 pandemic bump, the market is still compounding into 2026.
Who scans: users and US behaviour
There is no global scan census — treat any worldwide 'scans per day' figure as marketing. The credible, dated numbers:
- **US users:** 89 million smartphone users scanned a QR code in 2022, up 26% from 2020, on track for an estimated 102.6 million by 2026 (Statista Digital Outlook / eMarketer; US; 2022 actual / 2026 estimate).
- **US consumers:** 68% scanned at least one QR code in the past year (TEAM LEWIS 2025 consumer study; US; 2025 self-report).
- **Hardware base:** 91% of US adults own a smartphone as of November 2025 (Pew Research Center; US; Nov 2025) — the baseline every scan depends on.
Read together: scanning is mainstream behaviour in the US, not a novelty or a pandemic leftover. These are US figures — do not extrapolate to global scan rates without a source that covers your market.
Payments made QR codes a payments rail
The steepest growth is in payments. Juniper Research estimates **2.2 billion people used QR-code payments in 2025**, up from 1.5 billion in 2021 — roughly 47% growth in four years.
India is the fastest-growing single market. UPI, the rail behind the QRPress UPI payment code generator, processes more than 18 billion transactions a month (NPCI statistics), and India is the single largest geographic source of QR-generator traffic in our own competitive analysis (August 2026) — about a third of the combined visits of leading tools.
Where the scanning actually happens
Physical placements dominate. A multi-country scan-behaviour survey found **restaurants the most common place consumers had scanned a code (58%)**, ahead of websites (42%) and product packaging (40%) (appy.to State of QR Codes roundup).
Marketers report the same health from their side: 9 in 10 used QR codes in 2025, and 94% increased or maintained usage versus the prior year (Bitly QR Code Trends 2025).
How to use these numbers
The statistics answer the 'is it worth it?' question, but they do not tell you how your own code performs. For that you need your own measurement:
- Permanent print (menus, packaging, signage) → a static QR code at zero cost — it never expires and scans identically to dynamic.
- Campaigns that may change → a dynamic QR code so you can swap destinations and count real scans.
- Counter payments → a UPI payment QR, the highest-intent code a shop prints in 2026.
Industry averages inform strategy; your own scan count is the only number that matters for a specific campaign. Published averages are the starting point, not the verdict.