Amazon adds Affirm instalment payments at UK checkout

Amazon.co.uk began offering Affirm instalment payments at checkout from 23 September 2026, giving UK shoppers a new way to spread the cost of a purchase. The option is being introduced progressively rather than to every customer at once, so some shoppers may not see it yet even on an eligible order.

Two products are on offer: an interest-free three-payment plan called 0% Pay in 3, and longer instalment loans running for up to 48 months at a representative fixed APR of 22%. Both are credit agreements. Approval is not guaranteed, and the launch lands two months after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) began regulating this type of third-party deferred payment credit, commonly known as buy now pay later, from 15 July 2026.

How the two options differ

Both products require an eligible Amazon.co.uk basket of at least £50, and a customer applies by selecting Affirm at checkout, where Affirm returns an eligibility decision. Beyond that, the two products work very differently.

A representative APR is an advertising figure rather than a rate every applicant is guaranteed to receive. Amazon and Affirm have not published what proportion of approved customers get the advertised 22% rate, whether individual rates vary, or which term lengths are offered against which basket values. The pre-contract credit information shown to an applicant at checkout, rather than the launch announcement, is what settles the actual rate, term and total amount repayable for a given order.

Customers can make payments manually or set up automatic debit from a bank account or debit card.

Who can apply, and what's excluded

Amazon's launch disclosure sets out a baseline: UK residents aged 18 or over with a bank account or debit card, subject to a credit check, with a down payment sometimes required. Affirm's separate UK eligibility material, aimed more broadly at merchants, also lists a valid UK driving licence or passport and an SMS-capable UK phone number as requirements. It is not clear from the Amazon announcement whether these additional items apply unchanged to the Amazon checkout flow, so a shopper who is asked for this information at Affirm's checkout screen should treat it as part of the application rather than an error.

Affirm is available across most Amazon.co.uk product categories, but the companies have named specific exclusions: gift cards, groceries, out-of-stock products, and certain digital content including music, videos, Kindle books, apps and game downloads. These are presented as examples of what is excluded rather than a guaranteed exhaustive list, and the checkout screen itself determines whether a given order qualifies.

The credit risk that "no late fee" doesn't remove

Affirm says its initial eligibility check is a soft credit check that does not affect the applicant's credit rating. That is a distinct step from what follows: once a customer takes out Affirm credit, the amount used, the age of the account and the customer's payment history may affect their credit rating, according to Affirm's own eligibility material.

This matters most around missed payments. Affirm and Amazon say neither Pay in 3 nor the longer plans carry a late fee, and Affirm says balances can be repaid early with no early-repayment penalty. But the absence of a late fee does not cancel the underlying debt or remove the consequence of missing a payment: Affirm's disclosures say a missed payment may still affect a customer's financial or credit standing, separately from any fee. Anyone using either product should treat it as borrowing they need to be able to afford, not as a fee-free way to defer payment without consequence.

Section 75, the A-to-z Guarantee, and Amazon's returns policy

Amazon says its normal returns and refunds policy applies to items it sells directly, and that its A-to-z Guarantee continues to cover qualifying purchases made through third-party sellers on its marketplace. These are Amazon's own contractual protections, separate from statutory consumer rights, and they carry their own conditions and limits.

Amazon and Affirm's launch material also states that items costing over £100 bought through either Affirm option are covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. That is an abbreviated version of the legal position. Section 75 can make a creditor jointly liable for a supplier's breach of contract or misrepresentation, but it applies only where there is a qualifying debtor-creditor-supplier arrangement, and where the cash price of a single item — not the basket total — is more than £100 and no more than £30,000. A basket that adds up to over £100 does not, on its own, bring separately priced items under £100 within scope. Anyone considering a Section 75 claim on a specific Affirm-financed order should check that item's individual price and the terms of the agreement rather than relying on the basket total.

Who's lending, and what the FCA now requires

Amazon EU S.à r.l. is acting as a credit broker for this arrangement, not as the lender. It introduces customers to a panel of lenders that includes Affirm U.K. Limited, which is the entity extending the credit. Affirm U.K. Limited states that it is authorised and regulated by the FCA for regulated consumer credit activities, under firm reference number 756087.

Since 15 July 2026, this type of third-party deferred payment credit has fallen within the FCA's consumer credit regime where the statutory conditions are met. The FCA's stated protections for regulated deferred payment credit include clear pre-contract information, proportionate affordability checks, support for customers who fall into financial difficulty, and access to the Financial Ombudsman Service if something goes wrong. The FCA has also published market context: it estimated that 20% of UK consumers, or 10.9 million adults, used buy now pay later in the 12 months to May 2024, and that the market grew from £0.06bn in 2017 to more than £13bn in 2024. Those are market-wide figures rather than Amazon or Affirm customer numbers, but they show the scale of borrowing this regulation now covers.

The FCA's own position, as reported in its material, is straightforward: buy now pay later is borrowing, and a consumer should be sure they can afford the repayments before taking it on.

What to check before accepting

Several details are not settled by the launch announcement itself and are only visible in the specific offer a customer is shown. These include the actual APR and total repayable for a given order, the exact payment dates, and whether and when a down payment applies. The controlling document for these is the credit agreement and pre-contract information Affirm presents at checkout, not the companies' launch statement. Separately, the announcement does not say which credit reference agencies Affirm uses, what account data it reports, or on what timetable; Affirm's applicable privacy notice and credit agreement, rather than the launch statement, are what would settle whether and how any such reporting happens. Anyone weighing up either option should read that agreement in full, check the figures against their own budget, and look up the FCA's published material on regulated deferred payment credit if they want to understand their rights before they borrow.