dLocal Review

dLocal is an emerging-markets payment platform founded in 2016 in Montevideo, Uruguay by Sergio Fogel and Andres Bzurovski, and listed on Nasdaq since June 2021 as DLO. It exists to solve one problem: a global business that wants to sell in Brazil, India, Nigeria or Indonesia has to accept Pix, boleto, GCash, M-Pesa, UPI and local cards, and settle in currencies with capital controls. dLocal covers 60+ countries and more than 1,000 payment methods through a single integration, and counts Amazon, Shopify, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Shein and Tripadvisor among its merchants. In 2025 it processed $41 billion of total payment volume, up 60%, on revenue of $1.09 billion and gross profit of $403 million. It is also the most legally scrutinised company in this category: two Muddy Waters short reports in late 2022, a reported Argentine government investigation in 2023, a New York IPO-disclosure class action that was dismissed and whose dismissal was upheld on appeal in April 2026, and a separate federal securities case in the Eastern District of New York that is still live.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using dLocal’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What dLocal is for

A US or European business that wants to sell in Brazil, India, Nigeria, Indonesia or Mexico runs into the same wall every time. A large share of consumers there do not hold an international credit card. They pay with Pix, boleto, UPI, GCash, GoPay, M-Pesa, cash vouchers or a local debit scheme your acquirer cannot route. And even if you solve acceptance, you then have to get the money out of a country that may restrict exactly that.

dLocal exists to make that one integration and one contract. Founded in 2016 in Montevideo by Sergio Fogel and Andres Bzurovski, listed on Nasdaq in June 2021, it now covers more than 60 countries and over 1,000 payment methods across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, handling both payins and payouts. Amazon, Shopify, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Shein, Tripadvisor and Fireblocks are named customers.

The business is now large and profitable

In 2025 dLocal processed $41 billion of total payment volume, up 60% year on year, and crossed $1 billion of revenue for the first time at $1.09 billion, with gross profit of $403 million, up 37%. The fourth quarter alone did $13.1 billion of volume, up 70%, on revenue of $338 million. Note the shape of that: volume growing faster than revenue, and revenue faster than gross profit, which is the margin compression the company has been warning about and short sellers have been pointing at. It is still a real business throwing off real profit.

What it costs

Enterprise pricing is private, as it is everywhere in cross-border. But dLocal Go, the self-serve tier, publishes an actual country list, and it is the best public window into the economics. Cards run 2.99% in Brazil and Chile, 3.49% in Argentina, 3.99% in Paraguay, 4.99% in Uruguay and 7.99% in Ecuador. Mexico is USD 0.20 + 2.49%, Colombia USD 0.20 + 1.99%. Indonesian and Malaysian cards are 5.50%. Nigeria is 3.90%, and Kenyan mobile money 3.90%. Brazilian Pix is 0.99% and boleto is a flat USD 0.50.

Two things merchants miss. Local tax applies to the processing fee itself, and it is not small: 21% in Argentina, 22% in Uruguay, 19% in Chile and Colombia, 18% in Brazil and Peru, 16% in Mexico and Kenya. A 3.49% Argentine card rate is effectively 4.22% once tax is added. And settlement is slow — T+3 for bank transfers and vouchers, T+7 for cards, with dLocal reserving the right to vary that by risk assessment. The published list is dated 2024, so treat it as an order-of-magnitude guide rather than a quote.

Those rates look punishing next to a 2.9% domestic card rate, and it is worth being clear about why they are not really comparable. dLocal is holding local licensing, connecting to local rails, underwriting local fraud, converting currency and repatriating your money out of a jurisdiction that may restrict it. If you sell into one emerging market at scale, a local acquirer will beat dLocal on price. If you sell into twenty, nobody will.

Four years of legal scrutiny

dLocal has been under more disclosure scrutiny than any other company in this category, and a merchant deserves the sequence rather than the headline. In November and December 2022 Muddy Waters Research published two short reports alleging contradictory disclosures about volume and receivables. In February 2023 putative class actions were filed in New York state court under the Securities Act of 1933, alleging omissions in the June 2021 IPO prospectus about expected commission-margin decline. In May 2023 Argentine reporting said the government was investigating dLocal over transfers abroad, and the shares fell more than 17%. In October 2023 a separate federal case was filed in the Eastern District of New York alleging misstatements about Argentine foreign-exchange risk and compliance controls.

Where it stands now: the New York state case was dismissed, and on 20 April 2026 the Appellate Division unanimously upheld the full dismissal, finding no material omissions before the IPO. That is a clean win. The federal case, Francis v. DLocal Limited, No. 1:23-cv-07501, is still live — court records show it active into 2026, with service on two individual defendants in Uruguay extended into February 2026. None of this has been adjudicated against dLocal, and none of it is a finding of wrongdoing. It is, however, four years of allegations about how the company describes its exposure in exactly the markets it sells access to.

The support record

dLocal's Trustpilot score is 1.1 out of 5 across 368 reviews, overwhelmingly one-star. A large share of that comes from consumers who saw 'dLocal' on a card statement for a purchase from a merchant they had never heard of, which is a labelling artefact rather than a service failure. Discount it accordingly.

The merchant-side complaints that can be identified are harder to discount, because they repeat: onboarding processes running six months and ending in rejection without a stated reason, support chats abandoned mid-thread, meetings rescheduled without notice, and slow responses on unresolved transactions. If you are evaluating dLocal, treat integration and onboarding as a project with a realistic timeline rather than a two-week task, and put a named account contact and an escalation path in the contract.

How to buy it well

Price it per market, not globally — the difference between 0.99% Pix and 7.99% Ecuadorian cards will dominate your blended cost, and your payment-method mix is the lever you actually control. Ask what local tax applies on the fee in each market and whether it is quoted inclusive. Ask how long a final settlement takes out of each country, what happens to funds held against chargeback exposure after you stop processing, and which legal entity holds your balance in a market with exchange controls.

dLocal is graded B- because the capability is close to unmatched and the surrounding experience is not: pricing you cannot benchmark, support the public record describes as poor, an open federal securities case, and settlement measured in a week. For a business that genuinely needs twenty emerging markets, it is still likely the right answer — just not an easy one.