If your business surcharged card payments, you can no longer do so from 1 October 2026. Following a Reserve Bank decision, the card networks most businesses rely on no longer allow surcharges, and the change applies whether you've adjusted your pricing for it or not.
Retail, hospitality, trades, professional services. If you take cards from consumers, this isn't something to leave for later. Terminals, pricing and merchant agreements need sorting now.
Not sure how the surcharge changes affect your pricing, your merchant agreement or your terms and conditions? We can help with all three.
Book a Free Client Assessment →What Changed on 1 October
From 1 October 2026, Mastercard and Visa no longer allow businesses to add a surcharge to payments made with their credit, debit or prepaid cards, and EFTPOS no longer allows it on its debit and prepaid cards.
It doesn't cover every payment method. American Express and UnionPay have also stopped surcharges from 1 October 2026, and PayPal follows from 5 October. Diners Club and Buy Now Pay Later are not part of the RBA change, so check the rules for any of these you accept. Taxi fares follow separate state rules.
The change was made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and published on its website, rather than through new legislation. The RBA lifted its prohibition on no surcharge rules, and Visa, Mastercard and EFTPOS have written those rules into their network rules. They usually reach you through your merchant agreement.
What This Means for Your Margins
If surcharge income was helping to cover your merchant fees, that cover ended on 1 October. To take the edge off, the RBA has also cut interchange fees, the fees banks charge each other on card payments. For personal credit cards, the cap has dropped from 0.8% to 0.3%. For debit and prepaid cards, it has dropped from 10 cents (or 0.2%) to 8 cents (or 0.16%). Separately, a 1% cap on cards issued overseas starts on 1 April 2027.
Whether that saving actually reaches you depends on your payment provider, not the RBA. Absorbing the remaining cost, raising your prices or offering a discount for cheaper ways to pay is a decision for you to make, and it needs making now, before your next month of invoices looks nothing like you expected.
Getting Your Pricing Right After 1 October
Many large payment providers said they would turn off surcharging on their terminals by 1 October. Don't assume yours has. Check with your provider now.
Ask your payment provider what you'll actually be charged in merchant fees from 1 October. Don't assume the RBA's rate cuts land in your account without checking.
Then decide how to handle the cost. You can absorb it, raise your prices, or offer a discount for cheaper ways to pay. Simply renaming the surcharge a "service fee" or "card fee" doesn't get around the rules, and the ACCC warns it may be misleading conduct.
Talk to your bookkeeper too. Surcharge income has sat as its own invoice line, and since 1 October it no longer exists, which changes how your reporting reconciles.
Last, check your website, your quotes and your terms and conditions for any mention of a card surcharge, and take it out now.
Who Enforces This
The card networks and payment providers enforce the no surcharge rules, through the network rules that flow into your merchant agreement, not the ACCC. That agreement is usually where a dispute about surcharging gets decided. The ACCC and Consumer Affairs Victoria can still act under the Australian Consumer Law, for example if a surcharge is disguised as a different fee.
If your pricing currently depends on surcharge revenue to stay viable, now is the time to have your merchant agreement and pricing reviewed.
How Phan Campbell & Associates Can Help
Our legal and accounting teams handle this kind of change from both sides at once. Merchant agreements, website terms and pricing disclosures on the legal side. Restructured pricing and bookkeeping on the accounting side. That helps stop things falling through the gap between the two, because the same firm is holding both ends.
Wondering how the change affects payments to our own office? Read our announcement, You Can Still Pay by Card. We're Covering the Cost.
Book a Free Client Assessment →
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What changed on 1 October 2026?
From 1 October 2026, Mastercard and Visa no longer allow surcharges on their credit, debit and prepaid cards, and EFTPOS no longer allows them on its debit and prepaid cards, regardless of business size. American Express and UnionPay have also stopped surcharges from 1 October 2026.
2. What about other payment methods?
PayPal's no surcharge rule applies from 5 October 2026. Diners Club and Buy Now Pay Later are not part of the RBA change, so check their own rules. Taxi fares follow separate state rules.
3. What should a business do now?
Check with your payment provider that surcharging is switched off on your terminals, confirm your actual fees, decide whether to absorb the cost, raise your prices or offer a discount for cheaper ways to pay, update your bookkeeping, and remove any card surcharge wording from your website, quotes and terms and conditions.
4. Who enforces the no surcharge rules?
The card networks and payment providers enforce the rules, usually through each business's merchant agreement, not the ACCC. The ACCC and Consumer Affairs Victoria can still act under the Australian Consumer Law, for example if a surcharge is disguised as a different fee.