What was claimed
Starbucks stores in the UK are going cashless from 1 October 2024.
Our verdict
Starbucks says it does not have a cashless policy in the UK, but some licensee-operated stores may have different rules.
Starbucks across the UK are not going cashless from October 2024
13 September 2024
Claims that coffee chain Starbucks is going cashless in the UK are being shared on social media. Many include a picture of a shop sign which says: “We’re going cashless from 1st October 2024 - We will only be accepting card, contactless & Starbucks rewards payments”.
Although the sign appears to be real, Starbucks says it “does not have a cashless policy in UK”. The coffee chain told Full Fact: “The majority of stores continue to offer cash payments to customers; however we operate alongside various licensee business partners, which means this may vary from store to store.”
Starbucks licensing model means that while many of its stores are owned and operated directly by the brand, licensee stores are operated by other companies.
We wrote about a similar claim in 2022, when an image of an in-store sign about going cashless went viral.
Online claims like this can spread quickly. Our toolkit includes resources on spotting misleading content to help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because Starbucks has confirmed it does not have a cashless policy in the UK. However, some licensee-operated stores may be cashless.