Card surcharges are gone: what your business needs to do

What changed on 1 October 2026

Following the Reserve Bank's review of retail payments, surcharging has been removed across the designated card networks — eftpos, Mastercard and Visa — with American Express also covered under the new rules. The RBA concluded that surcharging was no longer achieving its original purpose of steering customers toward cheaper payment methods, and had become confusing and poorly disclosed.

In practical terms: if a customer pays $100 by card, they pay $100. You can no longer add 1.5% (or any percentage) because they chose to tap instead of paying cash or bank transfer.

What's still allowed

The ban is specifically about surcharges that apply because of how the customer pays. Other charges are unaffected:

• Weekend and public holiday surcharges (common in hospitality) — these apply regardless of payment method.
• Booking fees and service fees that apply to all customers.
• Genuine cash discounts, provided the displayed price is the card price and the discount applies to everyone paying cash.
• Adjusting your overall prices to recover card processing costs — you just can't itemise it as a card surcharge.

The pricing rules still apply

While you can build card costs into your prices, Australian Consumer Law still requires clear, honest pricing. The displayed price must be the total price payable, and you must not give false or misleading reasons for a price increase. 'We've had to raise prices because of the banks' is risky territory — keep your pricing communication simple and accurate.

If you previously relied on surcharges to recover merchant fees, the good news is the RBA is also lowering interchange fee caps, which should reduce what you pay to accept cards — particularly for small businesses that historically paid higher rates.

What to update in your business

If you were surcharging, work through this list now:

• Turn off surcharge settings in your point-of-sale system, payment terminal and online checkout.
• Update invoicing software (Xero, QBO, MYOB) so card payment links no longer add a fee.
• Review your pricing to decide whether to absorb the merchant fees or adjust prices across the board.
• Remove any signage, website wording or invoice terms mentioning card surcharges.
• Check your merchant statement — with interchange caps reduced, it may be worth shopping for a better rate.
• Train staff so nobody adds a manual 'card fee' at the counter out of habit.

The bookkeeping angle

Merchant fees are still a deductible business expense, and if you're GST-registered you can generally claim the GST included in them. With surcharges gone, your card settlement amounts will now match your sales exactly — which actually makes bank reconciliation simpler, since there's no longer a surcharge line item to code.

If your books currently show surcharge income, make sure that account is retired cleanly and any historical surcharge income was reported correctly for GST. And if you're unsure whether your new pricing structure keeps your margins intact, that's exactly the kind of numbers conversation we have with clients every week.