Amex Card Fee Revenue Hits 30th Straight Quarter of Double-Digit Growth
American Express said net card fee revenue climbed 14% to $117 per card in 2025, anchoring a 10% rise in total revenue to $72.2 billion.
American Express (AXP), the premium card-and-payments network built on affluent Card Member spending, said net card fee revenue rose 14% for full-year 2025 to $117 per card from $103, marking the 30th consecutive quarter of double-digit net card fee revenue growth. The metric, which reflects premium-card membership fee income, underpinned a 10% rise in total revenues net of interest expense to $72.2 billion from $65.9 billion in 2024, or 9% on an FX-adjusted basis.
Card Member spending drove the broader top line as well. Billed business grew 8% for the year, or 7% FX-adjusted, to $1,669.8 billion from $1,550.9 billion. Average total loans and Card Member receivables grew 8% to $213,105 million, with average Card Member loans and receivables up 7% to $202,975 million and period-end Card Member loans up 9% to $151,832 million. Net interest yield expanded to 8.1% from 7.9%, and customer deposits grew 9% to $152,488 million.
The U.S. Consumer Services segment carried the result. USCS net interest income rose 11% to $12,507 million and segment pretax income rose 7% to $6,810 million. Global Merchant and Network Services moved the other way: total revenues net of interest expense there rose 4% to $7,759 million, but pretax income fell 10% to $3,968 million as salaries and other operating expenses jumped 42% to $2,110 million.
Capital and credit told separate stories. The CET1 ratio held at 10.5% as risk-weighted assets grew to $259,448 million from $235,775 million, and the company plans to raise its quarterly dividend roughly 16%, to $0.95 a share from $0.82, starting in the first quarter of 2026.
Consolidated provisions for credit losses rose to $5.3 billion from $5.2 billion, driven by higher net write-offs tied to loan and receivable growth and partly offset by a smaller reserve build than in 2024; the full-year net write-off rate held flat at 2.0%. The Card Member loan credit loss reserve grew 4% to $5,909 million, but the reserve as a share of Card Member loans eased to 3.9% from 4.1%, indicating coverage loosened even as the dollar reserve expanded.
Consolidated expenses rose 11% to $53.2 billion, reflecting higher variable costs tied to Card Member spending and travel and lifestyle benefit usage, along with increased spending on enterprise risk management and technology and the absence of the prior year's Accertify transaction gain. Net income rose 7% to $10.8 billion from $10.1 billion, and diluted EPS rose 10% to $15.38 from $14.01, or 15% on an adjusted basis excluding the $0.66-per-share Accertify gain booked in 2024.
American Express guided for 2026 revenue growth of 9% to 10% and EPS of $17.30 to $17.90, a range that would extend the pace of the fee and spending growth reported for 2025.