Key Highlights

  • Since 1 October 2026, card costs on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa cannot be recovered through a surcharge tied to paying by card.
  • American Express has also dropped surcharging.
  • The RBA says costs can be reflected in overall pricing, with other options including reviewing payment plans, shopping around and offering payment-method discounts.

With card surcharges removed from 1 October 2026, the Reserve Bank's guidance is that the cost of accepting cards can be built into a business's overall prices rather than added as a separate charge at the till.

"Those costs can be reflected in a business's overall pricing." That single sentence, from the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) frequently asked questions on its retail payments reforms, captures the practical shift that began on 1 October 2026.

Until then, a business could pass the cost of a card payment directly to the customer who chose to pay that way, by adding a surcharge on top of the bill. From 1 October, surcharging was removed on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa transactions, covering debit, prepaid and credit cards. American Express also removed surcharging from that date, although Amex is not formally regulated by the RBA.

The costs of accepting cards did not disappear. What changed is how a business is expected to recover them.

From the receipt to the shelf price

A surcharge is a line item: a separate amount, tied to the payment method, that appears only when a customer pays by card. Overall pricing works differently. The cost of card acceptance becomes one of many inputs, alongside rent, wages and stock, that a business weighs when it sets the price of what it sells.

The RBA's review found that card surcharges were significant in aggregate but concentrated. It estimated that "Consumers are estimated to be paying $1.6 billion of a total $1.8 billion in card payment surcharges" a year on designated networks, and referred to "the 16 per cent of merchants that currently surcharge" at the time of the review. That means the move to overall pricing directly changes practice for a minority of businesses, while the large majority of merchants were not surcharging in the first place.

The reforms also lowered the costs being recovered. Alongside surcharge removal, the RBA cut domestic interchange caps and introduced a new cap on foreign-issued cards. It expects lower wholesale card payment costs for merchants "by around $910 million per year", with small businesses expected to benefit most. The domestic debit and prepaid cap fell to 8 cents (or 0.16 per cent ad valorem) from 10 cents or 0.2 per cent, and the domestic consumer credit cap fell to 0.3 per cent from 0.8 per cent.

Charges the ban leaves alone

The removal applies only to surcharges added because a customer pays by card. It is not a ban on every extra charge a business might list. The RBA's FAQ makes clear that the following are not affected:

  • weekend and public holiday surcharges;
  • booking fees;
  • service fees; and
  • the fees that payment service providers charge businesses for terminals and processing.

The distinction turns on why the charge is applied. A surcharge triggered by choosing to pay with a card falls within the ban. A charge that applies for another reason, such as trading on a public holiday, sits outside it.

Levers the RBA points to

Beyond reflecting costs in overall pricing, the FAQ outlines several other options available to businesses. They can review their payment plans and shop around for payment providers. They can also offer discounts for particular payment methods, with ACCC guidance on pricing displays applying.

That last point is a useful contrast. A business cannot add a charge because a customer pays by card, but it may offer a lower price for a different payment method, provided it follows the ACCC's guidance on how prices are displayed. The difference is between penalising one method and rewarding another.

Reviewing payment plans and comparing providers, meanwhile, works on the cost side rather than the price side: a business that pays less to accept cards has less to recover through its prices in the first place.

Transparency is also set to improve. Designated card networks are to publish aggregate interchange and scheme fee data quarterly, with breakdowns including domestic and international, debit and credit, card-present and card-not-present, and tokenised transactions, the last intended to shed light on mobile wallet fees. Some payment-cost transparency changes take effect on 1 April 2027.

The grey areas, answered

The RBA's FAQ addresses a number of situations where businesses may have wondered whether the rules apply.

Business-to-business transactions are not exempt unless network rules or law provide otherwise. Not-for-profit organisations are not exempt. Invoices issued before 1 October but paid on or after that date may no longer be surcharged, which means the timing of payment, not the date of the invoice, is what matters.

Taxis remain under state and territory regulation. Surcharges applied to payment methods other than cards are not regulated by the RBA. For businesses whose prices are set by a regulator, the RBA has informed governments and price regulators about those businesses.

On exemptions, the FAQ is direct: "Whether any exemptions are available is a decision for each card network, not the RBA."

Stepping back from the edge cases, for consumers the change replaces a variable add-on with a single displayed price that should not change depending on whether they tap a card. That makes the price on the shelf, menu or website a more reliable guide to what a customer will pay at the checkout, at least as far as card surcharges are concerned. Other permitted charges, such as public holiday surcharges or booking fees, can still apply.

Whether overall prices move as a result, and in which direction, depends on individual businesses' decisions, the costs they face and the competition around them. The RBA's role has been to remove the card surcharge and lower regulated wholesale costs; pricing decisions remain with businesses.

The bottom line

Since 1 October 2026, card acceptance costs on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa can no longer be recovered through a surcharge tied to paying by card, and American Express has also dropped surcharging. The RBA's guidance is that those costs "can be reflected in a business's overall pricing", with other options including reviewing payment plans, shopping around for providers and offering discounts for particular payment methods under ACCC guidance. Weekend, public holiday, booking and service charges remain outside the ban. Businesses unsure how the rules apply to them may wish to check with their card network or payment provider.

The RBA does not require an individual merchant to raise its prices by any specified amount. Businesses may decide how to account for genuine acceptance costs in overall pricing, subject to applicable rules.