Speaking your Customer’s Language. A Guide to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet Localisation
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When your customer pulls up a wallet pass on their phone, they expect it to feel familiar — and that includes reading it in their own language. For companies issuing passes across multiple countries, getting this right isn't just a nice touch, it's essential. A pass that displays in the wrong language looks unprofessional and leaves users confused about the information presented on screen.
The good news is that provided everything is set up correctly, Apple Wallet and Google Wallet handle this language choice automatically. Most people refer to this process simply as "translation," but the term Apple and Google use — and the one you'll see throughout this post — is localisation.
Using localisation, a pass can show labels and values on the front and back of the pass in different languages for different users, with the language shown depending on the user’s device settings.
Even better, PassEntry offers localisation - on selected plans. If you’re unsure whether localisation is included in your current PassEntry plan, please contact us and we will be happy to help.
How does Localisation Work?
Apple Wallet and Google Wallet automatically match the device language with the localisations you’ve defined. The device checks its system language settings. It looks for a matching localisation in your pass.
If a match exists then that language version of the pass is shown. This means you don’t need to guess your user’s preferred language – the wallet handles it for you. Almost 150 languages are supported – and that number is increasing.
Customers can add up to 5 languages to a pass using our Dashboard and up to 20 using the API.
What happens if a device uses an unsupported language? Apple Wallet and Google Wallet each handle this differently. The guidance is to use English as the default language to ensure predictable results.
Platform | How the language is chosen when there’s no exact match |
|---|---|
Apple Wallet | Tries device preferred languages → if none match, searches for English localisation → if not present, defaults to first localisation alphabetically |
Google Wallet | Tries device locale → if none match, falls back to the template defaultLanguage |
Clever – isn’t it?
Very. Before localisation existed, customers had to pick one language, then create multiple pass templates and identify the right language or accept that users would see the wrong language. This meant extra work for the teams managing passes and a clunky, confusing experience for users.
Is this solution going to benefit many clients? In a word - Yes! Companies in the retail sector, those operating loyalty programmes, organisations involved in event promotion, those providing ticketing and travel services as well as enterprise businesses operating across multiple regions can all benefit from localisation.
Did you know – most of our competitors don’t offer localisation?
It’s true.
Yet, wiithout built-in localisation, teams typically have to manually create and manage a separate pass for each language — multiplying their workload every time they need to make an update. One change to a loyalty card or event ticket can mean editing perhaps five, ten, or twenty versions. That's a significant source of potential errors, inconsistency, and avoidable support requests. For enterprises businesses operating across borders or serving multilingual audiences, localisation also removes a huge technical barrier to international growth.
Most solutions treat localisation as an afterthought — a workaround bolted on through duplicate passes. At PassEntry our approach is fundamentally different: a single pass adapts its language dynamically, and it is built in line with how Apple and Google actually designed their wallet technology to work. It's not a hack; it's the right way to do it. That means cleaner, sharper pass management and a more consistent end-user experience.
As a business expands into new markets, localisation is often one of the first friction points. Having localisation already built into the pass infrastructure means expansion doesn't require any reconfiguration — new languages can be added without creating new passes or even having to restructure existing ones. In the long-term, as your business continues to grow this means that time is saved on every campaign, update and product change - plus there are no rebuilds needed as your business scales.
For Example ….
Let’s say, for example, that we are a French supermarket chain and we want to replace our physical loyalty card scheme with a digital wallet pass. With a mix of local customers and English-speaking tourists, we are the perfect client to add localisation: meaning the pass will display in French for local customers, and default to English for those whose devices are set to another language.
Before it is issued, localisation is built into the PassEntry pass.
The device settings will determine which to display.
Local customers see the pass in French and tourists an English version (if that is the default language chosen in their phone settings).
The pass that speaks your customer’s language is they one they’re most likely to choose
Users understand and trust passes more when they are shown in their own language. This improves adoption, reduces confusion and makes the product feel more professional. PassEntry passes are fully dynamic – if a person changes their device settings, their pass language will change too without requiring the customer to reinstall it and localisation is supported both for labels and dynamic values.
Remember, our localisation works natively with both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet language selection.
When it comes to digital wallet passes, at PassEntry we speak your language.
