Update, 13 June 2026: the cut is now in effect. Our card data and the Mashreq Cashback review show the bill-bundle rate at 0.15% as of today; the figures in this 29 May announcement are confirmed.
Mashreq’s published notice on the Cashback Credit Card product page confirms a category-rate cut on the card, effective 13 June 2026.
The verbatim notice on the page reads:
Effective 13 June 2026, transactions made for government payments, utilities, education, charity, fuel, rental & telecom spends with your Mashreq Cashback Credit Card will earn 0.15% cashback.
This is a meaningful structural change to one of the UAE’s most widely- held free cashback cards. The categories affected are the bill-payment bundle most households route through the card by default; the rate has been 0.33% since the current iteration of the Cashback launched.
What’s changing, and what isn’t
Cut to 0.15% from 13 June: government, utilities, education, charity, fuel, rental and telecom.
Unchanged:
- 5% on dining — the headline rate that defines the card. Includes the Talabat MasterCard 20% codes that stack on top of cashback.
- 1% on all other international and UAE spend — groceries, shopping, online, in-store, abroad.
- Free for life — no annual fee.
- AED 5 monthly free utility bill payment — separate to the cashback mechanic; the AED 5 fee waiver on one bill per month routed through Mashreq’s bill-payment channel stays.
What it means for cardholders, in AED
For a household running typical UAE bill spend through the card — DEWA or ADDC, Salik, Etisalat or du, and one or two government payments a month — the bundle adds up. Take AED 4,000 a month across the seven affected categories as a working figure. At the current 0.33%, that returns AED 13.20 in cashback a month, or AED 158.40 a year. From 13 June, the same spend returns AED 6.00 a month, or AED 72.00 a year — a difference of about AED 86 a year for the indicative household.
For heavy users — anyone routing AED 8,000+ a month across utilities, fuel and school fees — the year-over-year haircut is closer to AED 170.
The cashback on dining (5%) and on the catch-all 1% rate is untouched, so the direction the card pays best is unchanged: dining-led spenders are not materially worse off, and households who already pay school fees on a different card (some Mashreq peers cap school-fee cashback at zero anyway) lose almost nothing.
Where the card still pays back
The Cashback’s editorial argument has always rested on three things: the 5% dining rate, the AED 5,000 minimum salary that opens the card to early-career expats, and the free-for-life structure. None of those changes on 13 June. For the right household — AED 5,000 or so a month going through dining, with the rest of the spend split across the 1% catch-all and the now-haircut 0.15% bundle — the card is still a defensible everyday earner.
What changes is the editorial recommendation for households who use the card primarily as a bill-payment rail. With the bundle falling to 0.15% from 13 June, the AED 13/month it returns on AED 4,000 of bills becomes AED 6/month — close to rounding error. Those households should look at moving bill payments to a card whose category rates suit better, or — if they’re staying on Mashreq — accept that the Cashback is now more honest as a dining-led card than a household-bill rail.
What to do before 13 June
If you hold the card, nothing breaks. Cashback already earned on the affected categories before 13 June is paid as normal. The notice is prospective — the new rate applies to transactions made on or after 13 June 2026, not to spend earned earlier in the cycle.
If you were considering the card primarily for utility / fuel / telecom spend, hold the application and re-evaluate against the post-13-June rate; the card’s role in your wallet may now be different.
What we’ll be watching
Mashreq has not signalled whether the cut is permanent or part of a cycle of category-rate adjustments. We’ll re-verify the rate against the live product page in our Mashreq Cashback review at the next refresh and update our card-data figure on 13 June.
Read our full Mashreq Cashback review for the AED-first verdict and the break-even maths against alternatives including the CBD One, FAB Cashback and HSBC Live+.
