RBA card surcharge ban Australia 2026: what it means for your business

What is the RBA surcharge ban?

A card surcharge is the fee businesses pass on to customers to cover the cost of accepting card payments. In Australia, merchants typically pay between 0.5% and 2% per transaction to their bank or payment provider. Many businesses have been recovering that cost as a surcharge line item at checkout.

That practice ends on 1 October 2026.

The RBA ran an 18-month review of Australia's payments system. Phase 1 began in October 2024. The Consultation Paper landed in July 2025. The final Conclusions Paper was released on 31 March 2026. The core finding: surcharging is no longer achieving its original purpose. When the framework was introduced over two decades ago, the logic was to steer consumers toward cheaper payment methods. Cash represented a viable alternative. Today cash is used in around 13% of transactions, down from 27% in 2019. Card payments are the default. Surcharging consumers for using the dominant payment method is no longer defensible, and 76% of Australians wanted it stopped.

What exactly is banned, and what is not

Banned from 1 October 2026

• •Surcharges on Visa debit, prepaid, and credit cards
• •Surcharges on Mastercard debit, prepaid, and credit cards
• •Surcharges on EFTPOS payments

Not included in the ban

• •American Express - excluded from this round of reforms. A further RBA review of Amex is planned from mid-2026 but no ban is in effect from October
• •Afterpay and Zip - Buy Now Pay Later services remain outside the ban. Merchants can still surcharge for BNPL
• •Apple Pay and Google Pay - currently excluded. The RBA has flagged a review of mobile wallet surcharging from mid-2026. When an Apple Pay or Google Pay tap uses a Visa or Mastercard network, the surcharge ban applies to the underlying card network, not the wallet interface separately
• •Cash discounts - offering customers a reduction for paying via bank transfer or another fee-free method is still permitted. The restriction is on surcharges added above the base price, not on merchant-controlled pricing incentives
• •Cashless venue surcharges - broader venue surcharges (weekend, public holiday) are legally distinct from card surcharges. Seek current legal advice if your business uses this structure

Does the surcharge ban eliminate merchant fees?

No. This is the most important distinction in the entire reform.

When a customer taps a Visa card at your terminal today, your payment provider charges you a merchant service fee. That fee has three components: an interchange fee paid to the card-issuing bank, scheme fees paid to Visa or Mastercard, and your provider's own margin. Surcharging let you pass those costs to the customer at point of sale. From October 2026, you absorb them directly.

The RBA is reducing interchange fee caps as part of the same package:

The aggregate saving to Australian merchants from these reductions is estimated at approximately $910 million per year. Whether that reaches your business depends on whether your acquirer passes savings through. The RBA has mandated quarterly pass-through reporting from January 2027.

What Australian merchants are paying per transaction in 2026

Rates vary by provider, plan, and transaction volume. See the full merchant fees comparison for detailed breakdowns.

At a 1.5% average rate, a business processing $25,000 per month in card payments pays $375 per month ($4,500 per year) in merchant fees. After October 2026, none of that can be passed to customers on Visa, Mastercard, or EFTPOS.

What merchants should do before 1 October 2026

1. 1

   Know your exact number - pull three to six months of merchant statements and calculate your total monthly card acceptance cost. Most merchants have never done this precisely. Do it now, not in September.

2. 2

   Enable least-cost routing - merchants have the right to route contactless debit payments over the cheapest available network. Ask your provider whether merchant choice routing is active on your terminal. If not, request it immediately.

3. 3

   Audit your POS configuration - if your point-of-sale system automatically applies a surcharge, that setting must be off before 1 October. Configuration changes can take weeks.

4. 4

   Model your two scenarios: absorb costs into existing margins, or reprice. These have different tax implications. Talk to your accountant before the deadline.

5. 5

   Review your merchant services agreement - some contracts include surcharging provisions that will need formal variation before October.

6. 6

   Consider payment methods with no merchant fee at all. Lower interchange helps. A payment method that carries zero interchange and zero scheme fees removes the problem rather than reducing it.

Key dates

Frequently asked questions

The payment option that removes the cost entirely

The interchange reductions reduce what you pay. They do not eliminate it. The only payment category with no interchange, no scheme fee, and no merchant service fee is direct bank-to-bank transfer using Australia's New Payments Platform.

QwikPay processes payments directly from your customer's bank account to yours via PayTo and PayID. No card network. No interchange. No merchant fee (not reduced, not capped, zero). QwikPay sits alongside your existing EFTPOS terminal as an additional payment option at the counter. No hardware required. No disruption to your existing setup. Customers who want to pay without card fees scan a QR code from their banking app and pay directly.