Visa vs Mastercard: Q2 2026 Earnings Compared

Visa and Mastercard grew revenue at almost exactly the same rate in the April–June 2026 quarter (14.4% and 14.1%) and saw identical 12% growth in cross-border spending. Their profits did not match. Mastercard's diluted earnings per share rose 22.1%; Visa's rose 10.4%. Visa's $563 million severance charge is the obvious suspect, but it explains little of the gap: on Visa's own adjusted basis, which excludes it, EPS still grew only 11.4%. The bigger difference is costs. Visa's adjusted expenses grew faster than its revenue; Mastercard's grew slower.

This comparison uses only the figures in our two published analyses: Visa fiscal Q3 2026 and Mastercard Q2 2026.

Why the labels differ. Both reports cover the same three months, April 1 to June 30, 2026. Mastercard's fiscal year matches the calendar, so this is its second quarter. Visa's fiscal year runs from October to September, so April–June is the third quarter of its fiscal 2026.

Side by side

Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. At about 60%, both are unusually high, which is what running a payment network (rather than lending money or holding inventory) looks like. Each company defines "value-added services" and its volume measures in its own way, so read those rows as direction, not an exact like-for-like.

What drove each company

Visa: revenue fine, costs heavy. Personnel expense jumped 40% to $2,458 million, mostly on $563 million of severance that Visa says was taken "to drive operational efficiencies and reinvest in high-growth opportunities." Marketing rose 54% to $649 million, partly for the FIFA World Cup 2026. A litigation provision that fell to $253 million from $615 million offset part of both. Excluding all special items, Visa's operating expenses still grew 17% against 14% revenue growth. On revenue, value-added services (consulting, marketing services, fraud tools) grew 33%, and "other revenue" rose 45%.

Mastercard: services, pricing and currency. Its card volumes slowed on every measure it reports, yet revenue held up because of value-added services, now 41.2% of net revenue and growing 20%, plus pricing and a 2-point currency tailwind from the weaker dollar. Operating expenses grew 10%, and personnel costs, its biggest line, grew only 5%. Mastercard took its own $202 million restructuring charge in the first quarter, so none of it lands in this quarter's comparison.

Where they diverge

Cost growth is the main split. Visa's total operating expenses rose 19%; Mastercard's rose 10%. That is why Visa's operating margin fell 1.6 points while Mastercard's rose 1.5 points on almost the same revenue growth. The timing of restructuring explains part of it: Visa booked its severance in this quarter, Mastercard booked its restructuring charge a quarter earlier. But Visa's adjusted costs growing 17% says the difference isn't only timing.

Below the operating line, Visa lost more ground. Visa's operating income grew 11.3% but its net income only 6.8%. Interest expense rose to $194 million from $39 million, mostly because the prior-year quarter included a tax-related interest benefit (Visa also issued $3.0 billion of new bonds in February 2026), and its tax rate edged up to 17.6% from 17%. Mastercard went the other way: its tax rate fell to 20.0% from 20.8%, adding about a point to net income growth.

Same cross-border volume, very different fee growth. Both grew cross-border volume 12%. Visa's international transaction revenue rose just 6%, which its filing puts down to "lower volatility of a broad range of currencies and business mix." Part of what Visa earns on a cross-border payment is the spread on converting currencies, and calmer exchange rates shrink it. Mastercard's cross-border fees, before incentives, rose 21%. Our Mastercard analysis doesn't identify a matching currency-volatility drag, but the two companies bill cross-border activity differently, so the gap shouldn't be read as purely a competitive one.

Both are paying more to keep banks and merchants. Incentives, the payments each network makes to card-issuing banks and large merchants to win or keep their business, grew faster than the fees they come out of at both companies. At Visa they rose to 28.7% of gross revenue from 28.1%. At Mastercard they rose to 52.4% of gross network fees from 49.9%. Those two ratios use different bases, so the levels aren't comparable, but the direction is the same: each is giving back a slightly bigger slice of each new dollar billed.

Buybacks helped both equally. Visa's diluted class A share count fell 3.1%; Mastercard's fell 2.9%. That lifted EPS growth above net income growth by a similar amount at both, so it does not explain the gap between them.

Takeaway: The two networks are growing their top lines at the same pace from the same kind of spending, and both are paying rising incentives to do it. What separated their earnings this quarter was cost: Visa's adjusted expenses grew 17% against 14% revenue growth, while Mastercard held expense growth to 10%. Visa's severance charge is the visible one-off, but even excluding it Visa's EPS grew 11.4%, about half Mastercard's 22.1%.

What to watch next quarter

Neither company gives numeric revenue or earnings guidance in its filing or earnings release, so the watch-list comes from the reports themselves.

Visa: its service revenue for July–September is billed on April–June payments volume, which grew 10% in constant dollars against 9% for the quarter before, so that input is already slightly better. The severance charge and World Cup marketing should not repeat at this size, which should let the operating margin recover toward 60% or higher. Whether adjusted costs and incentives keep outgrowing revenue is the real test, along with whether calm currency markets keep holding back cross-border revenue.

Mastercard: cross-border volume growth slowing to 12% from 15% is its most important trend, since that is its highest-fee activity. Watch whether incentives keep rising as a share of gross fees, and whether reported growth drifts toward the 12% currency-neutral rate if the dollar stops weakening. Two dated legal events fall in the current half: a trial with two merchants seeking more than $250 million, which the Q2 filing listed as scheduled for September 2026 (its outcome is not covered here), and a final approval hearing on a merchant-rules settlement in November 2026.

Both: an April 2026 class action on behalf of US merchants over credit-card interchange fees names both Mastercard and Visa, so a ruling there would affect the two together.