Meal Vouchers and Benefit Cards: Pluxee, Edenred, Up and Local Providers by Country

Meal vouchers look like the dullest line in a benefits package. They are not. Across much of Europe, Latin America, Türkiye and India, a tax-advantaged meal benefit is one of the first things candidates compare, because it is worth real money every working day and costs less than the same amount in salary. Deliver it as cash where the market expects a card and the offer looks dated.

This guide explains how meal and benefit cards work, where the 2026 rules make them worth offering and which providers to invite in each market. It is part of the benefits pillar of the Finding the Right Person hub, alongside our country map of what candidates expect and the benefits package question set.

Why a meal card beats the same money in salary

The mechanism is similar everywhere. The state lets an employer give a limited amount per working day for food, free of income tax and often of social contributions, provided it is spent on food and arrives through a regulated instrument — a voucher, a restricted card or an app — rather than as cash on the payslip.

Portugal shows the arithmetic. In 2026 a cash meal allowance is exempt only up to €6.15 a day, while the same allowance on a meal card is exempt up to €10.455, according to Portuguese press reports of the new figures. On an €11 daily allowance, cash leaves €4.85 a day taxable and the card €0.545. Over 220 working days that is roughly €1,070 of taxable income against €120, for the same employer spend.

Türkiye works the same way with bigger, faster-indexed numbers. The 2026 daily exemption is TL 300 for income and stamp tax — TL 330 on a card once VAT is included — and card loads are also exempt from SGK premiums, while cash meal pay is exempt only up to a much smaller daily amount. Multinet’s exemption guide is a handy running reference, and our Türkiye recruiting playbook explains why candidates quote offers as “net salary plus yemek kartı”.

Most regimes tie the benefit to days worked and treat remote and office staff alike, as France does for teleworkers.

How a meal-card euro actually flows

Four parties are involved. The employer pays face value plus a service fee; the issuer holds the money until it is spent; the employee spends it within daily caps and merchant filters (France caps daily spending at €25); and the merchant receives face value minus a commission, days or weeks later.

The service fee is often the smallest part of the issuer’s income. Merchant commissions, interest on prepaid balances (float) and value that expires unspent (breakage) do much of the work — Pluxee’s first-half fiscal 2026 results credit float revenue in high-rate Brazil and Türkiye. A “zero-fee” quote is paid for further down the chain, usually by the restaurant your employees want to use.

The 2026 rulebook, country by country

Twelve markets where meal benefits shape offers, with the 2026 limit and the latest change, using this pillar’s three layers: required, expected, differentiating.

Three patterns stand out. A card beats cash almost everywhere the two coexist. Limits are moving fast: Belgium’s first increase in a decade, Italy rewarding electronic vouchers while leaving paper at €4, and India’s jump from ₹50 to ₹200, which puts meal cards back into new-regime salary structures. And the line between restaurant meals and groceries is still contested, with France extending grocery use year by year.

Brazil is the outlier on obligation: the Labour Code does not require meal benefits, but many collective agreements do. See our Brazil playbook and the Americas benefits guide; in Mexico, vales de despensa are near-universal in formal jobs (see the Mexico playbook).

Regulators have turned to the merchant side of the deal

For years the market ran on a quiet cross-subsidy: issuers won employers with zero or negative fees and recovered the money from merchants and float.

Brazil moved furthest. Decree 12.712, signed in November 2025, capped the merchant discount rate on PAT cards at 3.6% and interchange at 2%, banned other fees and discounts to employers, required settlement within 15 days and pushed large arrangements onto an open model with interoperability within 360 days. Fee rules applied from February 2026, and injunctions won by several incumbents were overturned on appeal that month, Brazilian press reported. The decree also makes the employer jointly responsible for irregularities in its programme.

Italy capped the commission issuers can charge merchants at 5%. In France, a bill filed in June 2026 would ban discounts below face value, require annual fee statements to merchants and make titres digital-only from 2028; it had not been adopted at the time of writing. In Türkiye, merchant groups have publicly criticised commissions and settlement times. For employers the direction is clear: rebate-driven pricing is ending, service fees will be positive and visible, and acceptance should widen.

Germany plays by different rules: meal subsidies and the €50 card

Germany never had a voucher culture, but it offers two levers that benefit-card providers have productised. The meal subsidy lets an employer reimburse lunch, usually via a receipt photo in an app; the benefit is valued at the official €4.57 in 2026 as long as the subsidy stays within €7.67 per working day and below the meal price, and employers commonly flat-tax that value.

The €50 monthly non-cash benefit (Sachbezug), loaded onto a card that passes payment-services rules — a regional city card or one limited to a defined range of goods — is free of tax and contributions; general-purpose prepaid cards stopped qualifying in 2022. With occasion gifts and a job ticket, the total exceeds €1,000 a year. These are differentiators rather than expectations; see our Germany playbook and the Europe and Türkiye benefits guide.

The providers: two global giants, a cooperative and the challengers

Two Paris-listed groups dominate: Pluxee, spun off from Sodexo in 2024, and Edenred, owner of Ticket Restaurant. The French cooperative Up Group works mainly through local brands — Multinet Up in Türkiye, givve in Germany, Up Sí Vale in Mexico. Around them sit app-first challengers. Listings are editorial and independent; no provider paid to be included. Check current terms directly with each provider.

Multinational issuers

Brazil: incumbents, fintech challengers and a merger

CADE data cited by Bloomberg Línea in October 2026 put Alelo at about 30% of the market and Alelo, Pluxee, Ticket and VR together at about 80%.

Türkiye: the yemek kartı market

Pluxee and Edenred (Ticket Restaurant) also operate here. All three local names below accept payment on major food-delivery platforms.

Mexico, India and Germany

What the employer really pays: fees, float and breakage

Quotes are built to be compared on the service fee, the number that tells you least. Ask every bidder for six lines: the service fee on loads; card issue and replacement charges; the merchant commission band and settlement time; the funding date relative to the load date (float); the treatment of unspent and leavers’ balances (breakage); and any rebate, which is banned in Brazil and targeted in France. In Türkiye or Brazil, paying ten days before loads arrive is a real hidden cost.

Card, app and wallet: what employees now expect

Paper is on its way out: Italy taxes paper above €4 while exempting electronic vouchers up to €10, and the French bill would end paper titres in 2028. Candidates now expect phone payment, a real-time balance, delivery-platform acceptance and instant card blocking. Delivery acceptance decides whether hybrid staff can use the benefit on home days; if you also pay a home-working allowance, align the two using our guide to remote-work stipends.

Running meal benefits in several countries at once

A master agreement with Pluxee, Edenred or Up gives one contract and one set of reporting definitions. Local champions often win on features and price where competition is fierce — Brazil’s fintech cards, Germany’s modular apps, Türkiye’s local issuers. Tender the master agreement and invite one strong local bidder in each of your three largest markets.

If you hire through an employer of record, ask which card it uses; some pay an allowance in cash and lose the exemption (see hiring where you have no entity). For tools that let employees choose, see the flexible benefits platforms comparison and flexible benefits and cafeteria plans; for where the benefit sits in the offer, set the pay band before you post.