Dubai Duty Free has become the first airport retailer in the Middle East to accept Crypto.com Pay, the companies . The payment option is live at Dubai International Airport, Al Maktoum International Airport, and Dubai Duty Free’s online store, for eligible UAE residents with a verified Crypto.com account.
How the payment works
In-store, customers select Crypto.com Pay at checkout, scan a QR code showing the amount in AED, and approve the transaction in the Crypto.com app. Online, a QR code is presented at checkout completion and approved the same way. Dubai Duty Free receives settlement in UAE dirhams regardless of what funds the transaction is inside the customer’s wallet, and Crypto.com Pay joins existing digital payment options including Apple Pay, Alipay and Terrapay.
Ramesh Cidambi, Dubai Duty Free’s managing director, said: “Following the strategic partnership established through last year’s MoU, we are pleased to move into the roll-out phase with the introduction of Crypto.com Pay.”
Eric Anziani, Crypto.com’s president and chief operating officer, called Dubai Duty Free “one of the world’s most recognised travel retail brands and one of the largest single airport duty free operators globally.”
The same rollout pattern as Emirates
The launch implements a memorandum of understanding Dubai Duty Free and Crypto.com signed in July 2025. That’s roughly the same timeline as Emirates’ own Crypto.com Pay launch for flight bookings, which went live in late July 2026 following its own MoU with Crypto.com, also signed in July 2025.
One licence behind both launches
The infrastructure underneath both rollouts is a single Stored Value Facilities (SVF) licence Crypto.com’s UAE entity, Foris DAX Middle East FZE, received from the Central Bank of the UAE on 11 May 2026, making it the first Virtual Asset Service Provider licensed by the CBUAE. Crypto.com’s own announcement of that licence explicitly named Emirates and Dubai Duty Free as integrations it would enable, alongside a separate partnership with Dubai’s Department of Finance to let residents pay government fees with virtual assets.
That means this week’s launch is the third scheduled deployment of a licence secured three months earlier, rather than a standalone commercial deal. Government fees, flights and now airport retail are three different consumer touchpoints built on the same regulatory foundation.
Eligibility is narrower than the “first Middle East airport retailer” framing suggests. Crypto.com Pay at Dubai Duty Free is limited to UAE residents, not the international travellers who make up the bulk of an airport duty-free operator’s actual customer base. Neither company has disclosed transaction volumes since launch, or said whether eligibility will extend to non-resident travellers.
