Card Payment Surcharges Are Ending from 1 October 2026 – What Australian Businesses Need to Know

Sep 14

2 min read

From 1 October 2026, Australian businesses will no longer be allowed to charge card payment surcharges on eftpos, Visa or Mastercard transactions.

This change comes from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) as part of reforms to retail payment regulations. If your business accepts card payments, it's important to understand what is changing and whether you need to do anything before 1 October.

What's changing?

From 1 October 2026:

Businesses cannot add a surcharge to payments made by eftpos, Visa or Mastercard.
The ban applies regardless of which bank or payment provider you use.
The new rules will be enforced through the card networks themselves.

If you currently recover your card processing costs by adding a surcharge, you'll need to stop doing so before the deadline.

What if you use Xero Online Payments for Card Payment Surcharges?

If you use Xero Online Payments to accept card payments on invoices, Xero has confirmed the change will happen automatically.

Here's what will happen on 1 October 2026:

Card surcharges will automatically stop being added to invoices.
Customers will continue to pay online as normal, but they won't be charged the processing fee.
Any unpaid invoices that previously included a surcharge will automatically update when they're paid on or after 1 October.
The setting to pass card processing fees onto customers will be removed from Xero Online Payments.

If you'd prefer to stop surcharging before 1 October, you can turn the setting off at any time.

What if you use another payment provider?

If you accept card payments through an EFTPOS terminal, Stripe, Square, Typos, or another payment provider outside Xero, check with your provider about how they'll handle the changes.

Should you increase your prices instead?

There isn't a one-size-fits-all answer.

Some businesses may choose to absorb the card processing costs. Others may review their pricing to account for those costs across all customers.

The RBA has also made it clear that simply renaming a surcharge as a "card handling fee" or "cash discount" may still breach the new rules if it effectively operates as the old surcharge.