News · Rules & costs
Card surcharges end on 1 October. Here's what businesses need to do this week
From Thursday, eftpos, Mastercard and Visa rules stop businesses adding card surcharges, online and in store. What's covered, what isn't and what to do this week.
From Thursday 1 October, Australian businesses can no longer add a surcharge when a customer pays by eftpos, Mastercard or Visa. The change covers debit, credit and prepaid cards, including cards issued overseas, and applies online as well as in store.
The Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed the change on 31 March, when it published the conclusions of its review of merchant card payment costs and surcharging. Strictly, the RBA has not banned surcharges itself. It has lifted its long-standing prohibition on card networks’ “no-surcharge” rules, and eftpos, Mastercard and Visa have each decided to introduce those rules from 1 October.
The other big networks are following. According to the RBA, American Express and UnionPay are removing surcharging from 1 October, and PayPal from 5 October. AusPayNet and the banks say JCB is also aligning.
What the change covers
The rules apply to card payments made on or after 1 October. That includes invoices issued before that date: if the customer pays by card on or after 1 October, the RBA says a surcharge may no longer be available.
Business-to-business payments are not exempt, unless a network’s rules or another law says otherwise. The RBA granted no carve-outs of its own, despite what it describes as many requests. Any exemption has to come from a card network or from separate law or regulation. Taxi surcharges remain a matter for state and territory regulators.
What it doesn’t cover
The change is about card surcharges. The RBA says it does not cover:
- weekend and public holiday surcharges, booking fees and service fees, as long as they apply to every customer, whatever the payment method
- your payment provider’s own fees to you, such as terminal rental.
That condition matters. A “service fee” charged only when a customer pays by card is still a card surcharge.
Surcharges on non-card payment methods are not regulated by the RBA. Buy now pay later, mobile wallets and other payment methods are part of a separate review the RBA began on 25 June. It expects to set its priorities by the end of 2026.
What businesses can still do
Businesses can build the cost of card acceptance into their prices, and can still offer a discount for a preferred payment method, such as cash or bank transfer.
If you change prices, explain them accurately. The ACCC polices misleading pricing under the Australian Consumer Law and has published guidance for businesses on the surcharge change.
Who enforces it
The RBA does not regulate merchants directly. The no-surcharge rules belong to the card networks and reach businesses through their payment providers. AusPayNet, the industry body, says merchants who keep surcharging “may be subject to penalties”. The specific penalties are a matter for each network and provider.
If surcharging persists, the RBA has said it could recommend that the government legislate a ban.
The other half of the change: lower fees
The same package cuts interchange fees, the wholesale fees that card issuers receive on each transaction. From 1 October:
| Card type | New interchange cap |
|---|---|
| Domestic debit and prepaid | 8 cents or 0.16% |
| Domestic consumer credit | 0.3% |
| Domestic commercial credit | Unchanged at 0.8% |
| Foreign-issued cards (from 1 April 2027) | 1.0% |
The RBA estimates the full package, including the foreign-card cap from April 2027, will cut merchants’ wholesale card costs by around $910 million a year. It expects small businesses to benefit most, because they tend to pay fees closer to the current caps.
Whether you see those savings depends on your provider passing them on. New transparency rules are designed to show whether they do:
- By 30 October 2026: card networks and the largest acquirers (the banks and providers that process card payments, above $10 billion a year) publish their first quarterly fee data, including merchant service fees.
- By 30 January 2027: those large acquirers publish how much of the interchange cuts they have passed on to merchants.
- From 1 April 2027: merchant statements must break fees down by domestic and foreign cards, and in-person and online payments.
For context, the RBA estimates about 16% of merchants surcharged eftpos, Mastercard or Visa payments in 2024/25, and that consumers pay about $1.6 billion of the $1.8 billion in card surcharges collected each year.
Checklist for this week
- Call your payment provider. Confirm that surcharging will be switched off on every channel you use: terminals, online checkout, invoicing, booking systems and in-app payments. Not every channel updates automatically. CommBank, for example, says it will switch off surcharging on some of its online platforms, but businesses must turn it off themselves on terminals and in connected point-of-sale, practice management and other third-party systems.
- Remove surcharge notices from counter signs, menus, your website, checkout pages, invoices and terms of trade.
- Check any “service fees” apply to every customer regardless of payment method. If they only apply to card payments, remove them.
- Check open invoices. Any invoice paid by card on or after 1 October can’t carry a surcharge, even if it was issued earlier.
- Run a test transaction on each payment channel after the change, and brief staff so they can answer customer questions.
- Review your merchant plan. Once the largest providers publish fee data from 30 October, compare what you pay against the market.
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Sources 10 sources
- RBA media release: Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Paper (31 March 2026)
- RBA: Frequently asked questions – removal of card payment surcharges from 1 October 2026
- RBA Conclusions Paper: Surcharging
- RBA Conclusions Paper: Interchange fees
- RBA Conclusions Paper: Impact and implementation
- RBA Conclusions Paper: Executive summary
- RBA media release: Review of Payments System Regulation (25 June 2026)
- ACCC: Card surcharges
- AusPayNet: Card surcharging changes for businesses
- CommBank: RBA card surcharge reforms