Card surcharges disappeared from Australian checkouts on 1 October, but the Reserve Bank's own analysis suggests shoppers should not expect the total they pay at former surcharging businesses to change materially.

Twelve days in, the most visible effect of the card surcharge ban is the line that is no longer on the receipt. Since 1 October 2026, merchants can no longer add a surcharge when customers pay with eftpos, Mastercard or Visa debit or credit cards. American Express credit card surcharging ended on the same day, even though Amex is not formally regulated by the Reserve Bank.

Whether the bottom line on the receipt has changed is a different question. The RBA's analysis, published ahead of the switch-off, sets out an expectation rather than a verdict: no material change in the total price paid at merchants that previously surcharged.

Why the total may look much the same

The RBA's reasoning starts with what merchants are still allowed to do. Payment costs can be built into sticker prices. A business that previously added a card surcharge on top of its listed price can instead fold that cost into the price itself.

For a shopper at one of those businesses, that could mean a slightly higher listed price and no surcharge at the till — with the total landing in a similar place. That is the outcome the RBA's expectation of no material change implies. Its analysis does not predict the outcome for any individual business, and pricing decisions remain a matter for each merchant.

How the change feels may also depend on how you pay. For someone who used a card at a business that surcharged, the comparison is between the old price plus surcharge and the new all-in price. For someone who paid cash at the same business, no surcharge ever applied, so if that merchant folded card costs into its listed prices, the cash customer would be the one to notice a higher sticker price. Merchants can, however, still offer discounts for cash.

The RBA also considered whether businesses might round prices up when absorbing the surcharge. It concluded that the impact on inflation from rounding up would be "negligible".

That matters in an economy where inflation remains above target. Headline inflation, measured by the monthly CPI indicator, was 4.0 per cent over the year to August, and the quarterly headline figure was 3.9 per cent over the year to the June quarter. Underlying inflation, measured by the trimmed mean, was 3.6 per cent in the June quarter, and Governor Michele Bullock described it on 29 September as "about 3.5 per cent". The target range is 2–3 per cent. The next CPI release is due on 28 October.

Most shops never surcharged anyway

For many shoppers, the honest answer to whether their bill has changed is that it was never affected by surcharges in the first place. Only 16 per cent of Australian businesses surcharged. Among merchants, 85 per cent of small businesses and 89 per cent of large ones did not surcharge at all.

Where surcharges did apply, they added up. Consumers paid an estimated $1.6 billion of the $1.8 billion in annual card surcharges. The RBA said "surcharging no longer works as intended", and its review — which began in October 2024 and drew more than 260 written submissions and around 150 meetings — led to the ban.

What can still appear on your bill

The ban covers card surcharges, not every extra charge. According to the RBA's surcharging FAQs, several things remain allowed or fall outside the definition:

  • Payment costs built into sticker prices.
  • Discounts, including discounts for paying in cash.
  • Weekend and public holiday surcharges, booking fees and service fees, which are not card surcharges.
  • Terminal rental and processing fees, which are charges to merchants rather than card surcharges.

That means a weekend café bill or a booking fee on a ticket may still include an extra amount. The difference is that it cannot be a surcharge for paying by card on the covered networks.

A few other details answer common questions:

The RBA says "Whether any exemptions are available is a decision for each card network, not the RBA." Not-for-profits and business-to-business payments are not exempt by default. Card payments made on or after 1 October cannot be surcharged even if the invoice was issued earlier. Taxi surcharges are governed by state and territory law, and the RBA has informed governments and price regulators about regulated prices.

Behind the till: lower card fees for merchants

The ban arrived alongside lower caps on interchange fees — the fees that flow between banks when a card is used — from 1 October. Consumer credit card interchange is capped at 0.3 per cent; commercial credit cards remain at 0.8 per cent; and debit and prepaid cards are capped at 8 cents plus 0.16 per cent per transaction. A 1.0 per cent cap on foreign-issued cards takes effect from 1 April 2027.

The RBA estimates these changes will cut card issuers' revenue by around $660 million a year, assuming no change in behaviour, with industry implementation costs of around $25 million. Small merchants, most of which do not have strategic rates, are expected to gain most. Those lower costs sit on the merchant's side of the ledger; how, or whether, they show up in shelf prices is a decision for each business.

More information is on the way. Card networks must publish aggregate interchange and scheme fee data, and acquirers merchant service fee data, for the first time by 30 October 2026, covering 1 July to 30 September 2026. Ellis Connolly, the RBA's Head of Payments Policy, is scheduled to take part in a fireside chat at the AFIA conference on 20 October.

The bottom line

Twelve days after the ban took effect, the surcharge line has gone from receipts on the covered cards, but the RBA's expectation is that the total paid at former surcharging businesses will not change materially, and that any inflation effect from rounding up will be negligible. Most businesses never surcharged in the first place.

Extra charges such as weekend surcharges, booking fees and service fees can still appear, and merchants remain free to set their own prices and offer discounts. The first published fee data, due by 30 October, and the CPI release on 28 October will add to the picture — though neither will answer the question for any single receipt.