Card surcharging is ending soon. Here’s what merchants need to know before October 1

What is changing? 

From 1 October 2026, businesses will no longer be able to add surcharges to Visa, Mastercard or eftpos card payments for customers. American Express, JCB and UnionPay have aligned with these reforms and will remove surcharging from the same date.

Under the new rules, the RBA has also lowered the maximum “interchange” fees that the card schemes can set for card payment services. From 1 April 2027, a cap on foreign-issued card interchange fees will also be introduced. 

How will the surcharging ban affect Australian businesses?

For most Australian businesses, the change will have little or no direct impact. At the time of the Federal Government’s announcement to end card surcharging, around 16 per cent of businesses collected card surcharges³.

For this small percentage of businesses, the change means they will need remove card surcharging from 1 October, and they may need to reconsider how they manage costs of accepting card payments.

What is CommBank doing to support merchants?

To support merchants with some of the costs of accepting payments, CommBank is reducing its Merchant Service Fee from 1.1% to 0.99% per transaction for in store transactions for customers on simple rate flat pricing. The new fee will become one of the lowest fees available to merchants today and will come into effect from 1 October 2026.

For example, for a local café with close to $900,000 in annual turnover, this change puts close to $1,000 back in the pocket of the small business². And for those who do not surcharge, lower fees will provide a welcome reduction in their operating expenses. 

For business customers on Interchange Plus and Interchange Plus Plus pricing, their merchant fees will automatically reflect the revised interchange fee cap when they take effect.

Before 1 October, CommBank will contact all merchant customers with the actions required to comply with the surcharging changes, including updating terminal settings, switching off surcharging in point-of-sale systems, informing staff, and removing any store or online signage that refers to surcharging.

What else can merchants do to respond to the card surcharging ban?

For some businesses, surcharging has been used as a straightforward way to deal with the costs associated with accepting card payments. As the RBA’s changes take effect on 1 October, they may need to take a more strategic view of how payments fit into pricing, operations and customer experience.

That could include:

• reviewing pricing of products and services to factor in card payment costs; 
• supporting least cost routing where available through eftpos or lower-cost payment methods through checkout design and dynamic routing.

Even relatively small changes can make a difference over time, particularly for businesses managing high transaction volumes or tight margins.

Merchants of all sizes are navigating these shifts in payments, operating costs, pricing and customer expectations.

What are interchange fees, and why do they matter? 

Interchange fees are paid by the merchant’s bank to the consumer’s (cardholder) bank when a payment is made by card.  

Interchange fees make up a portion of the merchant service fee that businesses pay their bank, and generally help fund things like transaction processing, and fraud prevention, and rewards programs, as well as maintaining, updating and improving payments systems. 

As part of RBA’s decision to make payment costs easier to understand, monthly merchant statements will clearly break down the costs that make up the merchant service fee, helping businesses better plan pricing and manage cash flow. 

These changes are designed to make payment costs easier to compare and manage, with implementation from 1 October and no later than 1 April 2027.

¹ ^{Available from 1 October 2026 to eligible customers on a Single Rate Per Transaction plan. The rate includes GST and is applicable to in-store payments only. Terms and Conditions apply.} 

^{² Payment acceptance costs estimated on CBA's Single Rate Per Transaction Plan pricing as at 31 August 2026 which is 1.1%} 

^{³ Source: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Paper}