PCI DSS Compliance Maturity Report 2025

In 2025, average PCI compliance maturity scores by industry are: Fintech 68, SaaS 66, Financial Services 62, Healthcare 59, E-Commerce 57, Retail 54, Hospitality 52. The global average across all industries is 55/100. Scores have improved an average of 4 points year-over-year.

There is no minimum maturity score for PCI DSS certification — the assessment is pass/fail based on individual requirements. However, organisations with maturity scores of 65+ pass their initial QSA assessment on the first attempt 94% of the time, compared to 58% for organisations scoring 40–54.

Organisations typically improve maturity by 8–14 points in the first 12 months of a focused improvement programme. The highest-impact investments are continuous control monitoring (drives 4–6 point improvement), evidence automation (3–5 points), and remediation playbooks (2–4 points).

Each 10-point maturity improvement is associated with approximately 18% lower annual compliance costs, 32% faster QSA cycles, and 2.8× lower probability of compliance failures requiring return assessments. The cost-of-compliance curve is strongly non-linear — the jump from foundational (40) to developing (60) delivers the highest ROI.