From 1 October 2026, Australian businesses can no longer add a surcharge because a customer pays with an eftpos, Visa or Mastercard card: debit, credit or prepaid, in store, online or by phone wallet, including cards issued overseas. American Express, UnionPay and JCB dropped surcharging from the same day, and PayPal from 5 October 2026. None of these is formally regulated by the Reserve Bank, so for them it’s their own decision, not the RBA’s rules (RBA FAQ). Weekend and public-holiday surcharges, and booking or service fees that apply however the customer pays, are still allowed. The ban isn’t a new law. It works through the card networks’ rules and your merchant agreement. Alongside it, the RBA has cut the caps on the wholesale “interchange” fees banks charge on domestic cards, also from 1 October 2026, with a cap on foreign cards following on 1 April 2027.
This is general information, not financial or legal advice. If you’re unsure how the rules apply to your business, ask your payment provider or adviser.
What’s banned, card by card
| How the customer pays | Can you add a surcharge for paying this way? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| eftpos, Visa or Mastercard debit or prepaid | No, from 01/10/2026 | The networks’ no-surcharge rules, allowed by the RBA’s change |
| eftpos, Visa or Mastercard credit, including business and corporate cards | No, from 01/10/2026 | As above. Business-to-business payments aren’t exempt |
| Any of the above issued overseas | No, from 01/10/2026 | The rules generally apply to all cards on these networks, including international ones |
| Any of the above in a phone or watch wallet (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) | No | A Visa in a phone is still a Visa |
| American Express | No, from 01/10/2026 | Amex’s own decision (Amex merchant notice). Amex isn’t regulated by the RBA |
| UnionPay, JCB | No, from 01/10/2026 | Their own decisions, not RBA regulation (cardsurcharge.com.au) |
| PayPal | No, from 05/10/2026 | PayPal’s own rule: no surcharge “or any other fee for accepting PayPal” (PayPal policy update) |
| Buy now, pay later (Afterpay, Zip and others) | Not covered by the RBA change | Each provider’s merchant terms decide. Afterpay’s already bar a surcharge for choosing Afterpay; check your agreement for the others |
| Direct debit, PayTo, bank transfer | Not covered by the RBA change | The RBA doesn’t regulate surcharges on non-card payments. Your provider’s terms and consumer law still apply |
| Taxis | Separate rules | Taxi surcharges stay with state and territory regulators |
One thing worth knowing about the invoices you have already sent: the RBA’s guidance is that if a card payment is made on or after 1 October 2026, a surcharge may not be available even if the invoice went out earlier. Providers such as Stripe switched their surcharge function off from 1 October, so check what yours did.
Why it’s “banned” when there’s no new law
For more than 20 years the RBA’s rules did the opposite: they stopped the card networks from banning surcharges, so businesses could pass on their card costs. On 31/03/2026 the RBA’s Payments System Board decided that framework was no longer working. Plenty of businesses were charging the same surcharge on every card, it was hard to enforce, and fewer people carry cash.
So the RBA lifted its prohibition on “no-surcharge” rules for the networks it regulates (eftpos, Mastercard and Visa), with effect from 1 October 2026. The networks then brought in their own no-surcharge rules from that date. eftpos’s operator, AP+, announced a “zero-surcharge limit” on 04/06/2026; Visa announced it would remove surcharging by 1 October; and eftpos, Mastercard and Visa explain their rules on a joint information site, cardsurcharge.com.au, coordinated by the Australian Payments Network.
That matters for how it’s enforced:
- The card networks are responsible for compliance, through the rules that bind your payment provider and, through your merchant agreement, you. If you keep surcharging, expect your bank or provider to contact you, and the industry site warns you may face penalties under your agreement.
- The ACCC says plainly that it doesn’t enforce the networks’ no-surcharge rules, but it and the state and territory consumer agencies still enforce the Australian Consumer Law on misleading prices, price displays and the reasons given for price rises (ACCC guidance). The old “excessive surcharge” rules the ACCC used to police ended on 1 October 2026.
- If surcharging carries on anyway, the RBA has said the Government could legislate a ban (Conclusions Paper, s. 2.4).
Amex, UnionPay and PayPal sit outside the RBA’s formal regulation, which is why some early commentary said surcharging Amex would still be allowed. The RBA’s own FAQ now confirms all three have removed surcharging. Amex and UnionPay withdrew from their old undertakings with the RBA on 01/10/2026. The RBA opened a broader review on 25/06/2026 covering mobile wallets, card networks it doesn’t designate (such as Amex), and buy now, pay later, and plans to publish its priorities by the end of 2026.
What you can still charge
- Weekend and public-holiday surcharges, applied to everyone however they pay and shown clearly before they buy.
- Booking, delivery or service fees that apply regardless of the payment method. If a fee is unavoidable, consumer law generally expects it to be included in the single total price you advertise (ACCC price displays).
- A discount for a payment method you prefer. The RBA has said plainly that businesses can keep offering discounts for particular payment methods, including cash. The rule to watch is price display: the price you show has to be the full amount a customer pays without the discount, so “$20, or $19.50 cash” is fine, “$19.50 (+ card fee)” isn’t.
A minimum spend for card payments isn’t something to count on. The RBA’s changes don’t deal with it, and Visa’s own rules already say a merchant must not set a minimum or maximum transaction amount as a condition of accepting a card (Visa Core Rules, s. 1.5.5.1; the exceptions are for US credit cards, the European Economic Area and the UK). Ask your provider before putting a “$10 minimum on cards” sign up.
What doesn’t work is renaming the surcharge. An “admin fee”, “processing fee” or “service fee” that only applies because the customer chose a card is still a card surcharge, and the ACCC warns that calling it something else may be misleading conduct on top.
The other half of the change: lower card fees
The surcharge ban came packaged with cuts to interchange: the wholesale fee your provider’s bank pays the customer’s bank on every card payment. It’s one part of the fee you pay, alongside the network’s own fees and your provider’s margin.
| Card type | Old cap | New cap | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic debit and prepaid (eftpos, Visa, Mastercard) | 10 cents, or 0.2% if set as a percentage | 8 cents, or 0.16% if set as a percentage (average benchmark stays at 8 cents) | 01/10/2026 |
| Domestic consumer credit | 0.8% (average benchmark 0.5%) | 0.3% (benchmark abolished) | 01/10/2026 |
| Domestic commercial (business) credit | 0.8% (average benchmark 0.5%) | 0.8%, unchanged (benchmark abolished) | 01/10/2026 |
| Foreign-issued cards on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks (debit, prepaid, credit; in person and online) | No cap | 1.0% | 01/04/2027 |
Source: RBA Conclusions Paper, ch. 3 (Table 2 and s. 3.5) and ch. 8 (s. 8.1–8.2).
The caps are a ceiling, not a price. The biggest merchants already negotiated rates well below them; small businesses tended to pay at or near the cap. That’s why the RBA expects small businesses to benefit most, and estimates the package lowers wholesale card costs for merchants by around $910 million a year.
On a $200 sale on a personal credit card, the most the interchange part can now be is 60 cents, down from $1.60. On a $50 debit tap, it’s at most 8 cents, down from 10.
Will your own fee go down? Not automatically. Card acceptance still costs money, and the RBA’s approach is to “strongly encourage” providers to pass the saving on and make them publish whether they did, not to set your price. Some have moved already, for example:
- Stripe cut its standard Australian domestic card price from 1.70% + 30c to 1.65% + 30c online (and from 1.70% + 10c to 1.65% + 10c on its in-person Terminal) from 1 October 2026, and plans to cut international cards from 3.50% to 2.80% (plus the same fixed fee) from 1 April 2027. That’s its standard pricing; custom plans differ.
- Pinch, which emailed its customers on 30/09/2026, now lists domestic Visa and Mastercard at 1.70% + 30c, and Direct Debit at 1% + 30c, capped at $3. Its email also said it was removing surcharging on Direct Debit, a choice Pinch made itself: the RBA’s change doesn’t cover direct debit.
If you’re on a flat “blended” rate, a lower interchange cap may not show up in your rate unless you ask. Pull out your last statement and ask your provider what has changed since 1 October.
New fee information on its way
Part of the package is about making fees easier to compare:
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 01/10/2026 | No-surcharge rules and the lower domestic interchange caps take effect |
| 30/10/2026 | First publication of the networks’ interchange and scheme fee data, and large acquirers’ merchant fee data, covering 01/07/2026 to 30/09/2026. Then quarterly |
| 30/01/2027 | Large acquirers publish how much of the interchange cut they’ve passed on to merchants, covering 01/10/2026 to 31/12/2026 |
| 01/04/2027 | Foreign-card cap starts, and merchant statements must carry standardised fee information (from the first full statement period starting on or after that date) |
Source: RBA Conclusions Paper, s. 8.2, Table 10.
The 30 January publication is the one to watch: it will show, provider by provider, whether the savings actually reached businesses like yours.
On least-cost routing (sending a dual-network debit card through the cheaper network, usually eftpos), nothing new is required. The RBA expects providers to keep offering and promoting it in store, and is looking at online and phone-wallet routing in its next review. If your terminal has it, check it’s switched on.
What we checked on our own invoicing
We run a small online business of our own, Chill Domains, which takes payments by card through Stripe Checkout. On 12/10/2026 we went through its checkout and invoicing code. The amount sent to Stripe is only the domain’s list price including GST, line by line: there’s no surcharge, “card fee” or processing line anywhere in it, and the price on the website is the price the card is charged. Digital Greenhouse’s own invoicing tool has no card-fee line either. Card fees are booked as a business expense, which is where they belong under the new rules.
Most businesses will find the surcharge isn’t in one place. It’s a setting in the terminal, a toggle in the invoicing app, a line in the website’s checkout, and a sentence in the terms. That’s why the checklist below goes system by system.
Your checklist: what to do this week
- Payment terminal and POS. Run a test card sale and check the receipt. Providers were meant to switch surcharging off by 1 October, but not every system was updated automatically. If a surcharge still appears, call your provider.
- Online checkout. Check your website’s checkout total matches the cart total for card payments. If your site or plug-in calculated a surcharge itself, it has to come out. Stripe, for one, disabled its surcharge function but says it won’t remove surcharge code, disclosures or pricing from your own systems.
- Invoices and payment links. Look at the payment settings in your invoicing and accounting software, and the payment links you send (Stripe, Square, Pinch, Xero, QuickBooks and similar). Look for anything labelled surcharge, card fee, processing fee or “pass on fees”.
- Recurring and saved-card payments. Subscriptions, payment plans and auto-renewals keep charging whatever they were set up with. Check one has gone through since 1 October at the right amount.
- Booking and practice-management platforms. If a third-party system takes payments for you, ask whether it still adds a fee.
- Words customers see. Remove card-surcharge notices from counter signs, menus, the website, quotes, invoice templates, receipts, emails and your terms and conditions. Leave weekend or public-holiday surcharge notices only if they genuinely apply to everyone.
- Your prices. Work out what surcharges were recovering and decide whether to absorb it or build it into prices (below).
- Your provider. Look at your last statement, ask what changes from 1 October, and get a quote from one competitor. From 30/10/2026 you’ll be able to compare published fees.
- Your staff. Give them one sentence for customers who ask: “We don’t charge card fees any more. The price you see is the price you pay.”
Repricing without fuss
If you surcharged, you were recovering a cost that hasn’t gone away. A quick way to size it:
Card takings in the last 12 months × the surcharge rate you charged = what the surcharge recovered
A business that took $250,000 by card and surcharged 1.2% recovered about $3,000 a year. Spread across all prices, that’s a rise of a little over 1% if every customer paid by card, and less if some pay another way. For many small businesses, the lower card fee from a better provider covers part of it.
Three rules keep a price change clean:
- Raise the price, not a fee. One price that includes everything is what the networks, the RBA and consumer law all expect.
- Don’t blame the wrong thing. If you put prices up, don’t tell customers it’s “because of the card ban” unless that’s genuinely the reason and the size of the rise matches. The small business ombudsman and the ACCC both warn against misleading customers about why prices went up.
- Keep every channel consistent. The same price in store, online and on the invoice.
Most businesses never surcharged in the first place (the RBA puts it at about 16% that did), so for many of your customers, nothing changes at all.
Common questions
Are card surcharges banned in Australia?
Is American Express included in the surcharge ban?
Is the surcharge ban a law?
Can I still charge a weekend or public-holiday surcharge?
Can I offer a discount for paying cash or by bank transfer?
Can I call it a service fee or processing fee instead?
What if I sent the invoice before 1 October?
Do the rules apply to business-to-business payments?
Will my card fees go down?
What about foreign cards?
What should I do if my terminal still adds a surcharge?
Where can a customer complain about a surcharge?
Sources
All checked 12/10/2026 unless another date is shown.
Reserve Bank of Australia (regulator)
- RBA, Media Release 2026-10, Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Paper (31/03/2026). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, In Brief. rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, Executive Summary ($910 million a year; 16% of merchants surcharge; “strongly encourage” pass-through). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, ch. 2 Surcharging (s. 2.1 history since 2003; s. 2.4 decision and possible legislated ban). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, ch. 3 Interchange Fees (Table 2 previous caps; s. 3.5 new caps and foreign-card cap). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, ch. 7 Least-cost Routing of Debit Card Transactions (s. 7.4). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, ch. 8 Impact and Implementation (s. 8.1 caps; s. 8.2 Table 10 timeline). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Conclusions Paper, Appendix D, Varied Standards (Table 24; Standards No. 1, 2 and 3 of 2016). rba.gov.au
- RBA, At a Glance summary. rba.gov.au
- RBA, Frequently Asked Questions: Removal of Card Payment Surcharges From 1 October 2026 (Amex, UnionPay, PayPal; invoices; exemptions; discounts; complaints). rba.gov.au
- RBA, Media Release 2026-17, Review of Payments System Regulation (25/06/2026). rba.gov.au
- Federal Register of Legislation, Payment Systems (Regulation) Standards (Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging) Variation 2026, F2026L00434. legislation.gov.au
- Federal Register of Legislation, Standard No. 3 of 2016 Scheme Rules Relating to Merchant Pricing for Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Transactions (compilation of October 2026). legislation.gov.au
Consumer and small business regulators
- ACCC, Card surcharges (consumer guidance). The live page refuses automated requests, so we read the Internet Archive copy of 11/10/2026. accc.gov.au
- ACCC, Card surcharges (business guidance). Read via the Internet Archive copy of 18/09/2026. accc.gov.au
- ACCC, Price displays. Read via the Internet Archive copy of 31/08/2026. accc.gov.au
- Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Card surcharging ban (updated 12/10/2026). asbfeo.gov.au
- Consumer Protection WA, From the Commissioner: What the ban on card surcharges means for your wallet (08/10/2026). consumerprotection.wa.gov.au
Card networks and payment providers
- AP+ (eftpos), AP+ confirms zero-surcharge limit for eftpos transactions from October 2026 (04/06/2026). auspayplus.com.au
- Visa Australia, Visa supports the Reserve Bank of Australia’s direction to remove surcharging from 1 October 2026. visa.com.au
- Visa, Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules (edition 18/04/2026), s. 1.5.5.1 Prohibition of Minimum or Maximum Transaction Amount. visa.com
- eftpos, Mastercard and Visa, coordinated by the Australian Payments Network, cardsurcharge.com.au, business and consumer pages (Amex, JCB and UnionPay; international cards; wallets; penalties). cardsurcharge.com.au
- American Express Australia, merchant home page, American Express response to RBA payments reform. americanexpress.com
- PayPal Australia, Policy Updates: amendments to the PayPal User Agreement and the Online Card Payment Services Agreement (issued 05/08/2026, effective 05/10/2026). paypal.com
- Afterpay, Merchant Agreement (Australia), General Terms, clause headed “Surcharges”. afterpay.com
- Stripe, Australia is removing card surcharges: what Stripe users need to know. stripe.com
- Stripe, Updates to card pricing in Australia from October 2026. stripe.com
- Stripe, Australian pricing. stripe.com
- Pinch, pricing (and Pinch’s customer email of 30/09/2026). getpinch.com.au