RBA Reforms, Card Payments, Business Compliance

New RBA Card Surcharge Rules: What Agencies and Businesses Must Do Before 1 October 2026

From 1 October 2026, Australian businesses will no longer be allowed to add extra surcharges for Visa, Mastercard, eftpos or American Express card payments. For agencies, multisite retailers and service businesses, this is not just a pricing tweak, it’s a systems, bookkeeping and strategy project that needs planning now.

What exactly is changing from 1 October 2026?

Under the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2026 reforms, card schemes will be able to enforce no surcharge rules. In practice, this means Australian businesses will be banned from adding extra surcharges when customers pay with Visa, Mastercard, eftpos or American Express, across credit, debit and prepaid cards (RBA, 2026).

At the same time, interchange fee caps are being tightened, consumer credit cards will be capped at 0.30% of the transaction value, and domestic debit and prepaid cards at 8 cents plus 0.16% (RBA, 2026). The intent is that lower wholesale fees offset at least part of the revenue businesses currently recover via surcharges.

The end of customer surcharges: pricing now has to be inclusive

For the roughly 16% of Australian businesses that currently surcharge, the most visible change is the removal of customer surcharges at checkout. The “+1.5% for card” line on invoices, POS receipts and online checkouts will need to disappear for Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and Amex payments on and after 1 October even if the invoice was issued earlier (RBA FAQs).

Instead, businesses will need to embed card acceptance costs into their sticker prices or, where appropriate, offer discounts for lower cost payment methods such as bank transfer or cash. For agencies and professional services firms that invoice clients, this may mean revising standard engagement letters and payment terms to remove card fee clauses.

Absorbed merchant costs and the need for pricing adjustments

Once surcharges are banned, merchant service fees become a pure business cost. Even with lower interchange caps, many small and midsized businesses will see a hit to margin if they simply switch off surcharges and change nothing else. Industry submissions suggest likely price rises of 10–25 cents per item in hospitality and small but broad increases in other sectors.

This makes a considered pricing adjustment exercise essential. Rather than a blunt across the board increase, agencies and multiproduct businesses should:

• Model average card usage by client segment or product line.

• Quantify the percentage of revenue currently recovered through card surcharges.

• Decide where modest price increases or fee restructuring will be least sensitive for customers.

Mapping surcharge revenue against margins helps set defensible, data led price changes.

Software updates: terminals, POS and invoicing platforms

A practical but often overlooked implication is the need to update software. Many POS systems, online payment gateways and invoicing tools currently have surcharging rules built in either as a percentage or fixed fee for card payments. From 1 October 2026, those rules must be disabled for Visa, Mastercard, Eftpos and Amex.

Businesses should work with their payment service providers to:

• Confirm when surcharging functionality will be removed or restricted in terminals and gateways.

• Test transactions in advance to ensure no prohibited surcharges are applied after the deadline.

• Update invoice templates and ecommerce checkout flows to remove card fee wording.

Bookkeeping and expense reclassification: cleaning up the chart of accounts

Today, many businesses treat card surcharges as a separate income line, with merchant service fees booked as an expense. After the reform, that “surcharge income” line will shrink or disappear, while card fees remain. That calls for deliberate bookkeeping adjustments and, in many cases, a reclassification of expenses.

Finance teams and external bookkeepers should:

• Review the chart of accounts to ensure merchant fees and scheme charges are clearly captured under payment processing costs.

• Note that other types of fees, such as booking or service fees, remain allowed.

• Update management reporting so leadership can see the net impact of absorbed merchant costs on margin.

Reviewing your pricing strategy: a chance to renegotiate and reset

The surcharge ban is also a prompt to review your broader pricing strategy. Alongside modest price adjustments, businesses should use the RBA’s new transparency rules which require acquirers and card networks to publish fee data from late 2026 to shop around and renegotiate merchant service agreements. Some banks are already advertising simplified, lower rate plans in response to the reforms.

For agencies and multiclient businesses, this is an ideal time to:

• Benchmark merchant fees across providers using the new published data.

• Consider tiered pricing or retainers that reflect all in payment costs.

• Communicate clearly with clients and customers about any price changes and the reason behind them.

Acting now to avoid a last minute scramble

The 1 October 2026 deadline may feel distant, but for businesses and agencies that rely heavily on card payments, the change touches pricing, systems, contracts and reporting all at once. Starting now by mapping surcharge exposure, updating software, adjusting bookkeeping and revisiting your pricing strategy will turn a regulatory obligation into an opportunity to tighten margins, simplify customer experience and secure better payment terms for the long term.