Card surcharges are banned from October 2026.

From 1 October 2026

Card surcharges are banned.
Here's what your business needs to do now.

You can no longer charge customers a surcharge for paying by card. This is one of the biggest changes to Australia's payments landscape in years—and it can directly affect your pricing, margins and operations.

The good news

Most businesses will see costs fall.

The catch

You need to act now to prepare.

Your window

Roughly four months to prepare.

Why the RBA is doing this

Australians pay an estimated $1.6 billion in card surcharges every year. Behind the scenes, businesses bear even higher card-acceptance costs. The Reserve Bank's reform aims to fix that.

$910M

Lower merchant costs

Total merchant payment costs expected to fall by around $910 million per year, with small businesses seeing the largest percentage savings.

1 price

Simpler pricing

One final price at the checkout, whether customers pay online, in store or via mobile.

More leverage

Increased competition

Greater transparency in fees gives businesses real power to negotiate with payment providers.

The ACCC and Australian Small Business Ombudsman are overseeing implementation to ensure savings flow through fairly.

What's changing on 1 October 2026

Three core changes:

Surcharges banned completely

No percentage surcharges. No flat fees. Zero add-ons for card payments—eftpos, Mastercard, Visa or related networks.

Customers see one final price. Full stop.

What this means: If you currently add 1.5% for card payments or charge $0.50 per transaction, that ends. Prices must be all-inclusive.

Lower interchange fees

Interchange fees (the wholesale fees banks charge each other when a customer pays by card) are being reduced, with new caps for foreign-issued cards.

What this means: Your card-acceptance costs should fall automatically, even if you do nothing. Most businesses should see this flow through during 2026–27.

Greater transparency

Banks, card schemes and payment providers must now publish clearer information about fees and margins, and demonstrate how wholesale fee reductions are being passed to retailers.

What this means: You have real leverage to negotiate. You can compare providers with confidence and demand better rates.

Your roadmap

What your business needs to do now

You have roughly four months. This checklist is your roadmap.

Now

Review your merchant fees

Look at your last three months of statements and determine: how much you currently pay in card-acceptance fees, whether surcharges offset part of those costs, and what your total card-payment cost really is.

Why it matters: If surcharges are currently 1.5% on average and you process $100,000 per month in cards, you're getting $1,500 per month in surcharge income. When that stops, you need to know whether your underlying merchant fees will fall enough to cover it.

By August

Speak to your payment provider

Lower interchange fees mean your provider has room to negotiate. Talk to them about better merchant service fees, updated pricing plans, POS or terminal upgrades, and multi-year deals that lock in savings.

The timing is crucial. Small businesses often pay close to current fee caps, so you stand to gain the most. Larger businesses should leverage the competitive pressure.

By September

Update your pricing and systems

Remove

Surcharge signage (physical and digital)
Online checkout surcharge add-ons
Automatic percentage add-ons
Any messaging that mentions card-payment fees

Update

All displayed prices to be all-inclusive
Your POS system to reflect new pricing
Your e-commerce platform
Staff training (so no one mentions surcharges)

Real example: A café currently charging 1% surcharge on $50,000 monthly card sales is taking in $500 per month in surcharge income. If merchant fees fall from 1.8% to 1.3%, that's $250 of the $500 offset. The gap needs to be covered somewhere—either through margin adjustment or volume growth.

Sep–Oct

Build changes into your cash flow

Lower merchant fees won't appear overnight, but most businesses should see reduced costs flow through during the 2026–27 financial year. Plan for this by revisiting your annual budget, modelling cash flow impact for the next 12 months, and if you run on tight margins (trades, service businesses, cafés, retailers), mapping this out month by month.

What to watch: Higher card usage is likely. Removing surcharges often encourages more customers to pay by card instead of cash. This is usually positive (faster transactions, lower cash-handling risk), but track your acceptance costs as payment patterns shift.

The bigger picture

This reform levels the playing field.

If you never applied surcharges

You simply benefit from lower underlying fees — a straight margin improvement.

If you did add surcharges

You get simpler operations, less admin complexity and fewer compliance risks. The downside: you lose that surcharge income, so pricing or volumes need to adjust.

Over time, the reform should encourage more competition among payment providers, leading to better products, lower fees and simpler negotiations across the market. There may be secondary adjustments—banks reviewing rewards programs, for example—but the RBA and ACCC have designed the reform to ensure cost savings flow through fairly.

Start here

What to do this week

Pull your last three merchant statements – know your real card-acceptance costs

Schedule a call with your payment provider – start negotiating now, not in September

Review your pricing strategy – decide whether you'll adjust prices, absorb the gap or count on volume growth

Brief your team – they need to know surcharges are ending and what the customer experience will be

This isn't a panic. It's a practical reform that simplifies checkout, removes complexity and should lower your costs. But the opportunity to negotiate better rates and lock in savings expires once you move past October.

Talk to Modoras

Model the impact on your business
before October.

We can help you model the impact on your business, analyse your current merchant fees and support your negotiations with payment providers. If you'd like a tailored analysis of how the end of card surcharges affects your cash flow and margins, get in touch or book a review in the next month while you have time to plan.