If your business surcharges card payments, that line disappears on 1 October 2026. The Reserve Bank is banning surcharges on the card networks most businesses rely on, and the change lands 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 look at in October. Terminals, pricing and merchant agreements need sorting before the deadline, not after it.
Not sure how the surcharge ban affects your pricing, your merchant agreement or your terms and conditions? We can help with all three.
Book a Free Consultation →What Changes on 1 October
From 1 October 2026, businesses can no longer add a surcharge to payments made by eftpos, or by Mastercard or Visa debit, prepaid or credit cards. That's the large majority of everyday card transactions in Australia.
It doesn't cover every payment method. American Express, Diners Club, PayPal and Buy Now Pay Later are excluded and stay under their own existing rules. Taxi fares are excluded too, regardless of how they're paid.
None of this sits in legislation you can look up. Visa, Mastercard and eftpos are writing the ban into their merchant network rules, and those rules reach you through the merchant agreement you already signed.
What This Means for Your Margins
If surcharge income has been quietly covering your merchant fees, that cover ends on 1 October. The RBA is cutting the interchange fee cap from 0.8% to 0.3%, and capping international card fees at 1% instead of an unregulated rate that could run above 2%, specifically to take the edge off this for businesses.
Whether that saving actually reaches you depends on your payment provider, not the RBA. Absorbing the remaining cost or building it into your prices is a decision for you to make, and it needs making before 1 October. Not after your first surcharge-free month of invoices looks nothing like you expected.
Getting Your Pricing Ready Before 1 October
Most EFTPOS and POS terminals won't remove surcharging by themselves. Somebody, you or your provider, needs to switch it off manually before the deadline.
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: absorb the cost, or build it into your prices. Once the surcharge line is gone, there's no third option. Renaming it a "service fee" or "card fee" invites the exact scrutiny this ban exists to end.
Talk to your bookkeeper too. Surcharge income has sat as its own invoice line, and from 1 October it stops existing, 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 before the ban does it for you.
Who Enforces This
This isn't primarily an ACCC matter. Visa, Mastercard and eftpos enforce the ban through merchant network rules built into every business's merchant agreement, so that agreement, not the Competition and Consumer Act, is where a dispute about surcharging actually gets decided.
Worth having that agreement reviewed now, particularly if your pricing currently depends on surcharge revenue to stay viable.
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. Nothing falls through the gap between the two, because the same firm is holding both ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What exactly is banned from 1 October 2026?
Surcharging on eftpos, and on Mastercard or Visa debit, prepaid or credit cards, is banned outright, regardless of business size.
2. Which payment methods are not covered by the ban?
American Express, Diners Club, PayPal and Buy Now Pay Later remain subject to their own existing rules. Taxi fares are also excluded.
3. What should a business do before 1 October?
Reset your payment terminal, confirm your real merchant fees from 1 October, decide whether to absorb or price in the cost, update your bookkeeping, and check your website and terms and conditions for surcharge references.
4. Who enforces the surcharge ban?
The card networks, Visa, Mastercard and eftpos, enforce it through merchant agreements rather than the ACCC directly.