TL;DR: UPI has grown from 18 million transactions in 2016–17 to 186 billion in 2024–25, making it one of the fastest-growing digital payment systems in the world. Transaction value has risen from ₹7 thousand crore to ₹261 lakh crore, showing that UPI is now central to everyday as well as large financial transactions. However, usage is uneven across states, with Telangana leading in per capita usage and value, while states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura lag, reflecting wider economic and digital divides.

Context:

Ten years ago, most small payments in India meant cash. Buying vegetables, paying a rickshaw driver or splitting a restaurant bill usually required notes and coins. Today, a QR code does the job. From roadside tea stalls to large shopping malls, UPI has turned smartphones into digital wallets for hundreds of millions of Indians.

The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was launched in 2016 by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Its promise was simple: instant bank-to-bank transfers using just a mobile number or QR code. Over time, this simple idea has transformed how Indians perceive money. Paying someone no longer feels like a financial transaction. It feels like sending a message.

Who Compiles This Data?

The data on UPI transactions comes from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). NPCI operates UPI and publishes monthly and yearly statistics on transaction volume and value across States and Union Territories. These numbers are widely used by the Reserve Bank of India, banks, fintech companies and policy researchers to track digital payment trends.

Where can I download Clean & Structured Data on UPI Transactions?

Clean, structured and ready-to-use datasets on UPI transaction volume and value, including state-wise and monthly breakdowns, can be downloaded from Dataful.

Key Insights

UPI transaction volumes and value are growing at an extraordinary pace
UPI shows one of the fastest adoption curves ever seen for a financial system. In 2016–17, the first year of UPI, India recorded just 18 million transactions worth ₹ 7,000 crore. By 2018–19, this had already jumped to 5 billion transactions worth ₹9 lakh crore.

The real acceleration happened after the pandemic. Transaction volumes rose from 46 billion in 2021–22 to 84 billion in 2022–23, then to 131 billion in 2023–24, and finally to 186 billion in 2024–25. In just three years, UPI volumes quadrupled. Over the same period, transaction value increased from ₹84 lakh crore to ₹261 lakh crore, a more than three times increase.

To put this in perspective, India went from doing about 50,000 UPI transactions per day in 2016–17 to doing over 500 million per day in 2024–25, which means more than 5,000 transactions every second. Even in 2025–26, with data only till December, UPI has already recorded 177 billion transactions worth ₹230 lakh crore, showing that digital payments are now a core part of India’s economic infrastructure.

Telangana has the highest UPI usage intensity in India
Looking only at state-wise numbers, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana dominate UPI volumes. But once the population is considered, the picture changes.

In 2024–25, Telangana recorded about 274 UPI transactions per person, the highest in the country. Karnataka follows with about 203, Delhi with 241, and Maharashtra with about 185. This matches RBI findings that UPI usage intensity is highest in southern and western states and in Delhi, driven by urbanisation, smartphone access and strong fintech ecosystems.

On the other end, states like Tripura (33), Manipur (35), Bihar (44) and Uttar Pradesh (50) show much lower per capita usage, reflected in their lower per capita income.

Per capita UPI value reveals economic intensity
Nationally, per capita transaction value through UPI was about ₹1.36 lakh in 2024–25. But the differences across states are large. In Telangana, the figure is about ₹4.34 lakh, in Karnataka around ₹2.79 lakh, and in Delhi and Goa above ₹3.2 lakh. In contrast, Bihar stands at just ₹65,000, and Tripura below ₹50,000.

This gap reflects bigger economic differences. Higher per capita value usually signals higher incomes, more formal employment, and stronger business activity.

Anomalies and interesting patterns
Some small regions show unusually high per capita figures. Lakshadweep, for example, appears high simply because even modest transaction volumes divided by a very small population inflate per capita values.

Goa is another outlier, ranking high on both volume and value. This is likely due to tourism, where visitors use UPI extensively. Delhi also stands out with high UPI usage alongside high cash

The Missing Chunk in State-wise UPI Data
In 2024–25, unclassified transactions made up about 51 billion transactions, or nearly 27.5% of total volume, and around ₹68.7 lakh crore, or about 26% of total value.

These transactions likely include payments where state attribution is missing due to routing issues, app-level aggregation, institutional flows or data limitations at the NPCI level. Since there is no reliable way to assign them to individual states, they have been excluded from all state-level per capita calculations and are analysed only at the national level.

Why Does It Matter? 

UPI is not just about convenience. It reflects how money moves in the economy. Three things stand out. First, UPI is rapidly replacing cash in everyday life, with digital payments becoming the default for millions of Indians for low-value transactions. Second, adoption is uneven across states, showing that digital infrastructure and financial access still matter. Third, UPI mirrors economic development, as richer and more urban states record much higher per capita transaction values.

For policymakers, this means digital finance must go hand in hand with broader development. For ordinary people, scanning a QR code is no longer just a habit. It is part of a fundamental shift in how India’s economy works.

Key Numbers (from 2016-17 to 2024-25)

• All India UPI transactions (in billions):
  2016–17: 0.02 → 2020–21: 22 → 2024–25: 186

• All India UPI transaction value (₹ lakh crore):
  2016–17: 0.07 → 2020–21: 41 → 2024–25: 261

• Highest per capita UPI volume (2024–25, transactions/person):
  Telangana (274) → Delhi (241) → Goa (229) → Karnataka (203)

• Lowest per capita UPI volume (2024–25, transactions/person):
  Tripura (33) → Manipur (35) → Bihar (44) → Uttar Pradesh (50)

• Highest per capita UPI value (2024–25, ₹ lakh/person):
  Telangana (4.34) → Goa (3.23) → Chandigarh (3.24) → Delhi (2.99)

• All India per capita UPI value:
   ₹1.36 lakh per person per year

• Unclassified share of UPI (2024–25)
  Volume: 51 billion → 27.5% of total
  Value: ₹68.7 lakh crore → 26% of total