Zelle announced American consumers and small businesses sent more than $1.2 trillion on the network in 2025, marking its second consecutive trillion-dollar year and a 20% year-over-year increase in total dollars sent. The company framed the performance as a sign of its growing role in everyday money movement, noting that the growth rate outpaced U.S. consumer spending and business investment growth rates it cited for the third quarter of 2025.
The network reported 4.2 billion total transactions in 2025, up 16% from the prior year, and reported moving an average of $3.4 billion per day. Zelle also cited peak-usage milestones, including a record month in December, when 100 million bank and credit union accounts sent money using Zelle, and a single-day record in August 2025, when it said more than $9 billion moved across the network.
Zelle emphasized small-business usage as a core driver of volume, saying nearly 30% of all dollars flowed to or from small businesses in 2025. The company reported 647.6 million small-business transactions, up 23.5%, along with 7.7 million enrolled small businesses, up 15%. It also reported $357 billion in small-business payments, up 26%, positioning the product as a fast way for local service providers to receive payment and manage working capital.
Beyond higher usage, Zelle said customers are relying on the service for a wider range of shared expenses, particularly as households and friend groups split higher real-world costs. The company cited rent, childcare, and utilities as common categories and said memo-field data from its most active users in the fourth quarter of 2025 reflected increased use of events, travel, festivals, and personal services, along with casual social payments.
On consumer sentiment, Zelle said nine out of 10 surveyed users reported feeling safe or extremely safe using the service. It attributed some of the insights and quotations in the release to research conducted with Accelerant Research in partnership with Early Warning Services, LLC, including qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys conducted in January 2026 and a larger quantitative survey conducted in 2025.
Zelle said it is available through a network of more than 2,300 financial institutions and enables users to send and receive money directly between bank and credit union accounts. The service is owned and operated by Early Warning Services, LLC.
KEY QUOTES
“Leadership isn’t about buzzwords or flashy launches – it’s about reliability and results. Zelle is powering America’s consumers and small businesses, enabling reliable, large-dollar money movement for essential living expenses in an evolving American economy.”
Denise Leonhard, General Manager, Zelle
“End of the month there’s a lot of bills due, so cash flow can get really tight for a lot of business owners,” said Ernie C., the founder and owner of a wedding ceremony business in Oregon. “It’s just really more about knowing that the cash is there and being able to send what I owe out and being able to pay the people that I need to pay in a timely manner, so that just really helps me manage my cash flow with the business.”1
Ernie C., Founder And Owner, Wedding Ceremony Business In Oregon
“I don’t know what I would do without [Zelle] at times when I don’t know how to make payments, or I am in need or another one of my friends or families in need,” said Natasha C., a consumer from Texas. “[Zelle] is always there to make sure that my needs are taken care of.”4
Natasha C., Consumer, Texas
