Card surcharging for Australian merchants: what you can recover, and the 2026 reform

The reform status as at August 2026

Card surcharging on the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks is being removed from 1 October 2026, and that is a settled regulatory decision rather than a proposal.

The Reserve Bank published a Conclusions Paper on its Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging on 31 March 2026, setting out the final decisions of the Payments System Board (RBA media release 2026-10, checked August 2026). The Board concluded that a package removing surcharging, reducing interchange fees and increasing transparency was in the public interest.

The key decisions and their dates:

The RBA has also signalled a further public consultation on areas not covered by this review, including mobile wallets, three-party card networks, buy-now-pay-later services and e-commerce platforms.

How the change actually works

The RBA has not banned merchants from surcharging. It removed its own prohibition on card networks imposing no-surcharge rules, and the networks have used that freedom.

The mechanism is set out in the RBA's guidance. The prohibition on no-surcharge rules in Standard No. 3 of 2016 was removed with effect on and from 1 October 2026, through Schedule 3 of the Payment Systems (Regulation) Standards (Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging) Variation 2026, registered on 14 April 2026. That allows the designated networks to prohibit surcharging on their own networks.

The distinction matters for compliance ownership. As the RBA puts it, merchants typically deal with their acquirer or payment service provider, card schemes set the rules for those participants, and the RBA does not directly regulate merchants (RBA FAQs, checked August 2026). The ACCC has confirmed the same allocation: the no-surcharge rules are set by each card network's scheme rules and merchant contracts, and the card networks or payment service providers are responsible for enforcing them, not the ACCC (ACCC, checked August 2026).

All four major networks have announced no-surcharge rules from 1 October 2026:

American Express is not currently subject to formal regulation by the RBA but has decided to remove surcharging on the same date.

What you may still recover until 1 October 2026

Until the network rules take effect, a surcharge must not exceed what it costs your business to process that payment type.

The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) prohibits excessive payment surcharges, defining a payment surcharge at section 55A. The ACCC enforces the prohibition, and its statement of the rule is simple: the surcharge must not be more than what it costs the business to process that payment type.

The current prohibition applies to eftpos (debit and prepaid), Mastercard (credit, debit and prepaid) and Visa (credit, debit and prepaid). The ACCC lists the following as outside the current excessive surcharging rules: cash, BPAY, PayPal, Diners Club, American Express, and taxi fares regardless of payment type.

Your cost of acceptance is not the headline merchant service fee alone. Work from your acquirer statements, and be prepared to evidence the figure. Charging a blended rate across all card types — the practice the RBA identified as having undermined the original policy — is precisely what attracts scrutiny.

What is not a card surcharge

The reform is narrower than "no extra fees". Several charges are unaffected because they are not card surcharges at all.

• Weekend and public holiday surcharges. The RBA states that the changes do not apply to weekend surcharges or public holiday surcharges.
• Booking fees and service fees. These are also outside the change. They remain subject to the Australian Consumer Law price display rules, which is a separate and increasingly enforced regime.
• Fees your payment service provider charges you. Terminal rental, transaction processing and other payments-related services are fees for services provided, not payment surcharges, and the reform does not touch them.
• Discounts for particular payment methods. These remain permitted. The RBA is explicit that removing its prohibition on no-surcharge rules is not intended to prevent discounts being offered for using certain payment methods, and it points businesses that want to steer customers towards other methods to discounts rather than surcharges.
• Non-card payment methods. The RBA does not currently regulate surcharges on non-card payment methods, and directs businesses to their payment service provider and to the ACCC's guidance on appropriate pricing displays.

A caution on booking and service fees: if you rebadge a card surcharge as a "service fee" and apply it only to card payments, you have not solved the problem. You have created a price display problem on top of a scheme rules problem. See our explainer on component pricing and drip pricing.

Exemptions, invoices and edge cases

Exemptions are a matter for the card networks, not the RBA, and there is no general carve-out for small business, not-for-profits or business-to-business payments.

• Not-for-profits. The RBA states that businesses, including not-for-profit organisations, would not be exempt unless a card network's rules provide an exemption or one is provided by law or regulation.
• Business-to-business card payments. Also not exempt unless scheme rules or law provide otherwise. The RBA notes its changes do not limit a network's ability to impose no-surcharge rules on particular types of payments, including consumer, business or government-related payments.
• Invoices spanning the date. If a card payment is made on or after 1 October 2026, surcharging may no longer be available even where the invoice was issued earlier. The RBA advises checking with your payment service provider, as some providers have indicated they may disable surcharging functionality from that date.
• Regulated prices. Some businesses with regulated prices may not be able to adjust them. The RBA has informed governments and price regulators so the change can be taken into account in their decisions.
• Taxis. Surcharging in the taxi industry remains the responsibility of state and territory regulators, and any continuing surcharges stay subject to the relevant state or territory legislation.

What merchants should do before 1 October 2026

The work is commercial and systems work, not legal drafting, and the lead time is short.

1. Read your merchant agreement and any variation notice from your acquirer or payment service provider. The obligation will reach you through that contract.
2. Quantify your true cost of acceptance from acquirer statements, by card type and by channel, so you know what you are absorbing.
3. Reprice deliberately. The RBA's position is that businesses will still incur card acceptance costs and can reflect those costs in overall pricing rather than as a separate surcharge. That is a repricing exercise, not a rounding exercise.
4. Update every price display. Once the cost sits inside the price, the Australian Consumer Law single price rule governs how it must be shown. Menus, websites, booking flows, quotes and invoices all need review.
5. Reconfigure terminals and checkout flows and confirm with your provider when surcharging functionality will be disabled.
6. Shop the market. The RBA encourages businesses to review whether they are on the best payment plan and to compare providers; interchange cap reductions are expected to benefit smaller merchants most.
7. Decide your steering strategy. If you want to move customers to lower-cost methods, use a discount, and display it in compliance with the price display rules.
8. Diarise 1 April 2027 for the foreign card interchange cap and the remaining transparency measures.

Wider payments regulation is also in motion. Our explainers on the ePayments Code and on payment service provider licensing reform cover the adjacent changes, and the ePayments Code obligation record sets out who subscribes.

Penalties for excessive surcharging

Until the network rules take effect, the excessive surcharging prohibition remains enforceable, and the maximum penalties are substantial.

The ACCC states the maximum pecuniary penalty for breaching the prohibition against excessive payment surcharges as $2,355,444 (6,471 penalty units) for corporations and $471,380 (1,295 penalty units) for individuals, at the penalty unit value of $364 applying from 1 July 2026. Infringement notices are $21,840 (60 penalty units) for corporations, $218,400 (600 penalty units) for listed corporations and $4,368 (12 penalty units) for individuals (ACCC fines and penalties, checked August 2026). Model your exposure with the penalty estimator.

After 1 October 2026 the enforcement channel shifts. A merchant that keeps surcharging in breach of a network's no-surcharge rule is in breach of contract with its acquirer, not of an ACCC-enforced prohibition — but the commercial consequences, including loss of card acceptance, can be more immediate. Misdescribing a surcharge, or failing to include an unavoidable fee in a displayed price, remains squarely within the ACCC's remit and within its 2026-27 enforcement priorities.

This article is a reference summary, not legal or financial advice. Confirm the position with your payment service provider and the RBA or ACCC before changing your pricing.