The Fleet Card Opportunity for Car Washes

• 10M+ fleet cards are already active in the US, 41% of the global total, all needing somewhere to wash
• Cashless already drives 71%+ of car wash revenue. Fleet cards are the next slice of that shift
• MONEXgroup’s PayPro and PayPro Max now accept fleet cards on the same terminal already running the wash

Every day, millions of commercial vehicles drive past car washes across the United States. Delivery vans, HVAC and plumbing trucks, utility crews, rental fleets, municipal vehicles, last-mile couriers, and rideshare support vehicles all represent a significant opportunity for car wash fleet card payments. Federal vehicle registration data puts the number of U.S. trucks used for business, excluding farm and government vehicles, at 36.9 million. That is an enormous pool of potential customers idling just outside the industry’s reach because a large share of them pay with a card most car washes still cannot process: the fleet card.

What Makes a Fleet Card Different

A fleet card is not a personal credit card handed to an employee. It is issued by a company specifically to control and track vehicle-related spending across a fleet, restricting what a driver can buy, where, and when, then reporting every transaction back to the office for reconciliation. Companies enforce this control for good reason. Fraud and misuse cost fleets an estimated 16 billion dollars in 2024, a 33% jump from the year before, and close to half of fleet operators estimate that up to 5 percent of their fuel spend is fraudulent. A fleet card is the tool that keeps that number in check, which is exactly why so many companies mandate it, and nothing else, for vehicle-related purchases. Reporting like this also makes reconciliation and audits considerably simpler for the fleet’s own accounting team.

Why This Matters at the Wash Bay

That mandate has direct consequences for car wash operators. The US car wash industry is valued at close to 18.7 billion dollars in 2026, spread across an estimated 55,000 to 60,000 wash sites nationwide, the large majority independently owned or run by small regional chains. Cashless payments already make up more than 71% of car wash revenue, proof that the industry has largely moved past coins and cash. Fleet card acceptance is simply the next step in that same shift. If a wash cannot take the card a driver is required to use, that driver has no choice but to find one that can, no matter how good the wash itself is.

A Market That Already Exists

This is not a niche opportunity. The United States already has more than 10 million active fleet cards in circulation, close to 41% of the entire global market. That makes car wash fleet card payments a practical way to serve an audience that already exists. Every one of those cards belongs to a vehicle that has to wash somewhere, often on a schedule set by company policy rather than by weather or whim. An operator who accepts fleet cards is not chasing a hypothetical audience. They are opening the door to a payment method that is already standard practice across trucking, delivery, utility, and government fleets throughout North America.

How MONEXgroup Is Bringing Fleet Cards to the Bay

MONEXgroup’s PayPro and PayPro Max terminals now support car wash fleet card payments across major fleet card networks, right alongside standard consumer cards. Fleet card acceptance runs on the same terminal already handling remote activation, instant e-receipts, and instant full or partial refunds, so it fits into a payment experience the wash and its customers already know. For an operator, that upgrade does three things at once:

• Turns the terminal already running the wash into one that also serves commercial fleet accounts.
• Opens the door to vehicles that were previously turned away by default, simply because the wash could not process their card.
• Gives fleet drivers the same fast, guided tap-to-pay experience as every other customer, backed by the same remote activation, e-receipts, and refund tools already running the wash.

Ready to Stop Turning Fleet Customers Away?

Contact our team today to see how fleet card acceptance can work at your wash. MONEXgroup’s PayPro and PayPro Max terminals already bring together fleet card acceptance, remote activation, instant e-receipts, and instant full or partial refunds, all on one terminal built for the car wash environment.