Mastercard vs Visa: $1,000 invested since 2020

MA vs V · Data through 2026-06-01

$

$1,000 invested in 2020 would be worth

Mastercard

$1,684

+68.4%

VisaWinner

$1,806

+80.6%

The same $1,000 in the S&P 500 would be worth $2,540(+154%)

Growth of $1,000

Mastercard vs. Visa vs. S&P 500, 2020 to present

Year-by-year comparison

Mastercard vs. Visa, 2020 to present

YearMastercardVisa
2020$1,000$1,000
2021$1,006$977
2022$1,236$1,151
2023$1,192$1,180
2024$1,454$1,412
2025$1,808$1,780
2026$1,764$1,688

Which came out ahead

Visa (V) outpaced Mastercard (MA) over this stretch from 2020. That $1,000 grew to $1,806 in V versus $1,685 in MA as of 2026-06-01, roughly $122 more in the end.

The headline returns line up with the dollar figures. Visa returned +80.6% against Mastercard at +68.5%, a gap of about 12.1 percentage points over the 6.6-year window. Compounded, that is about 9.4% a year for V against 8.2% for MA.

Neither holding beat a plain S&P 500 fund over the same span. The index would have grown that $1,000 to about $2,540, compounding near 15.2% a year. All figures use split-adjusted closing prices and exclude dividends, taxes, fees, and inflation, so a real after-tax result would differ.

Treat this as history rather than advice about either company. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Other start years

Mastercard vs Visa from a different starting point

Numbers worth sharing

Occasional data drops when something interesting surfaces. No schedule, just signal.

For informational and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All calculations are based on split-adjusted closing prices from Yahoo Finance and do not account for dividends, taxes, or trading fees. See our methodology and full disclaimer.