dLocal review: products, technology and pricing (2026)

dLocal is a payments company that helps global merchants accept payments from, and send payouts to, customers in more than 60 emerging markets across Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Its distinctive approach is to process transactions locally, through local acquirers and local payment methods, instead of sending them across borders, and to convert and settle the funds for the merchant.

dLocal is listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker DLO. It says it began operations in 2016, and its enterprise customers are mostly large international merchants and platforms.

At a glance

How the platform works

A merchant integrates once with dLocal, either through the API or a hosted checkout, and then switches on the countries and payment methods it wants. For cards, dLocal says each transaction goes through a network of local acquirers, with smart routing that sends the payment to the acquirer most likely to approve it and retries for declines where card network rules allow. Customers pay in their local currency; dLocal manages foreign exchange and settles to the merchant in US dollars, euros, pounds, supported stablecoins or selected local currencies, on a cycle the merchant configures.

The company says licences and FX access are already in place in each market, so merchants do not set up local entities or bank accounts. Its pay-ins page also describes network tokens for cards, native recurring payments on local rails and fraud checks tuned to local behaviour, with 3D Secure calibrated by country. Our explainer on network tokenisation covers how those tokens work in general, and the guide to local payments in Latin America sets out why local rails matter.

Products

Pay-ins

Pay-ins collect payments through local cards, real-time bank payments such as Pix in Brazil and UPI in India, wallets, bank transfers, mobile money, cash vouchers, buy now pay later and, in eligible markets, stablecoins. The company's page cites 1000+ local methods and 60+ markets, without a date, and says stablecoin acceptance is live in 44+ eligible markets.

Payouts

Payouts send funds to local sellers and partners, depositing local currency directly into their bank accounts. The docs cover country requirements, quote configuration, status flows and reporting, and list crypto payouts as a global option. The investor page also mentions mass payouts in the Middle East.

dLocal for Platforms

The Platforms product manages payments and balances across multiple sub-accounts. The documentation covers onboarding, split payments, split refunds and chargebacks, settlements and bank account management, aimed at marketplaces and similar platforms.

Fraud prevention and KYC

The docs have fraud prevention guidance with required data fields, and dLocal's website lists a separate Defense Suite covering real-time monitoring, chargeback management and dispute handling. A KYC verification product has its own process and status documentation.

Developer experience and integrations

The docs are organised by product (Get started, Payins, Payouts, Platforms, KYC, API reference) and include a Postman collection, instructions for obtaining credentials and generating a signature, a test payment, and a go-live step. The pay-in integration methods are:

In the checkout redirect flow, the merchant sends a payment request with the redirect flow selected, receives a redirect URL, sends the customer there and then receives asynchronous status notifications. A payment starts as pending or rejected and ends as paid or rejected; redirect payments expire after up to seven days by default. Cards can be saved for later use or set up as subscriptions with weekly to annual frequencies. dLocal says this route does not require the merchant to hold PCI certification, and notes that the page must open in a top-level browser context rather than in an iframe. The docs do not have a dedicated SDK section.

Payment methods, currencies and coverage

Settlement currencies include USD, EUR and GBP. For the Latin America focus of EBANX and PayRetailers, see their profiles or read our dLocal vs EBANX comparison.

Pricing model

dLocal states that pricing is custom for each merchant, based on markets, payment mix, volume and settlement preferences. No public rate card is published. Its annual report describes revenue as heavily dependent on total payment volume. Ask for the full fee schedule, including FX margins.

Company figures

The figures come from dLocal's second quarter 2026 earnings release, dated 13 August 2026. The company also raised its 2026 guidance for volume growth in that release.

Recent launches and licences

Regulation in brief

dLocal's regulatory disclosure page says dLocal Ltd is authorised by Malta's Financial Services Authority and operates under its payment institution authorisation, one US entity is registered with FinCEN as a money services business, and dLocal OpCo UK Ltd is an authorised payment institution regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The company said in June 2025 that it held more than 30 licences and registrations in total. Verification steps are in our guide to checking a financial licence.

Who it tends to suit

dLocal commonly suits global enterprises, marketplaces and platforms that want one contract for many emerging markets across several continents, including payouts. Merchants focused on one region may also look at regional providers or at Rapyd. It is worth checking which entity contracts with you, settlement currency options and how FX is priced. The cross-border hub lists related profiles.