How Australia’s Card Surcharge Ban and Interchange Caps Work (From October 2026)
Australian businesses can’t surcharge eftpos, Mastercard or Visa payments from October 1, 2026, and interchange caps fell. The rules, the dates and a processor’s fee changes.
Checked against the Reserve Bank of Australia’s March 2026 Conclusions Paper, its media release and FAQs, and Stripe’s Australian support pages
As of · Reserve Bank of Australia’s card payment reforms, in date order, with Stripe’s standard Australian pricing for comparison23
| Date | What changes | Before | After | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 31, 2026 | RBA publishes its final decisions (Conclusions Paper) | — | Package: remove surcharging, lower interchange, add transparency | 1, 2 |
| Oct 1, 2026 | Surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa cards (credit, debit, prepaid) | Allowed | Not allowed (network “no-surcharge” rules; RBA’s prohibition on such rules ended) | 1, 3 |
| Oct 1, 2026 | Domestic-issued consumer credit card interchange | Cap 0.8%, benchmark 0.5% | Cap 0.3%, benchmark abolished | 2 |
| Oct 1, 2026 | Domestic-issued debit and prepaid interchange | Cap 10 cents or 0.2%, benchmark 8 cents | Cap 8 cents or 0.16% | 2 |
| Oct 1, 2026 | Domestic-issued commercial credit interchange | Cap 0.8% | Cap 0.8% kept; benchmark abolished | 2 |
| Oct 1, 2026 | Stripe standard pricing, domestic cards, online | 1.70% + A$0.30 | 1.65% + A$0.30 | 4 |
| Oct 5, 2026 | PayPal’s no-surcharge rule | Allowed | Not allowed | 3 |
| Oct 30, 2026 | Card networks and large acquirers start publishing fee information | Not required | Required | 3 |
| Jan 30, 2027 | Large acquirers publish how interchange cuts flowed into merchant fees | Not required | Required | 3 |
| Apr 1, 2027 | Interchange on foreign-issued cards acquired in Australia; more detailed merchant statements | No cap | Cap 1.0%; statements from all acquirers | 2, 3 |
| Apr 1, 2027 | Stripe standard pricing, international cards, online | 3.50% + A$0.30 | 2.80% + A$0.30 | 4 |
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is the regulator; its Payments System Board made the decisions. Caps are the maximum the card-issuing bank can charge the merchant’s bank (the interchange fee) on each transaction; a benchmark is a limit on the average. Rows for Stripe are Stripe’s own standard-pricing change, which it attributes to the lower caps, and they are not a rule; other processors’ pricing isn’t covered here.24 The RBA and the card networks say the “no-surcharge” rules are business decisions of each network and may change.3 This post describes the rules and isn’t legal or financial advice for any business.
How it works
What the RBA decided
On March 31, 2026 the RBA published the final decisions of its Payments System Board on its Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging: remove surcharging on debit, prepaid and credit cards on the designated eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks, lower the caps on interchange fees paid by Australian businesses, and increase transparency over the fees charged by card networks and payment providers.1 The Board said surcharging was no longer achieving its purpose of steering people to cheaper payment choices, partly because many businesses surcharge all cards at the same rate.1
What counts as a surcharge, and what doesn’t
A card surcharge is an extra fee charged because the customer pays by card. The RBA says a surcharge that applies regardless of payment method, such as a service fee or a weekend or public-holiday surcharge, isn’t a card payment surcharge, and that fees for services such as renting payment terminals aren’t covered either.3 Stripe makes the same point: renaming a card surcharge a “handling fee” doesn’t avoid the rules if it applies only when a customer pays by card, while businesses can still build payment costs into their regular prices and offer discounts for certain payment methods.5 The RBA’s FAQs add that it doesn’t currently regulate surcharges on non-card payment methods.3
Who is covered
The three designated networks, eftpos, Mastercard and Visa, each introduced “no-surcharge” rules from October 1, 2026. American Express and UnionPay also decided to remove surcharging, and PayPal’s rule takes effect on October 5, 2026; the RBA doesn’t formally regulate those three.3 The RBA says it plans a consultation on areas the review didn’t cover, including mobile wallets, three-party card networks, buy-now-pay-later services and e-commerce platforms.1
Interchange caps, before and after
The decision lowers the cap on domestic-issued consumer credit card interchange to 0.3% and abolishes the 0.5% benchmark, lowers the debit and prepaid cap to 8 cents or 0.16% (from 10 cents or 0.2%), and keeps the commercial credit cap at 0.8%.2 From April 1, 2027, interchange on foreign-issued cards acquired in Australia is capped at 1.0%.23 The RBA says foreign-issued cards were around 3% of card transactions in Australia but around 20% of interchange fees merchants pay.2
What moved in one processor’s fees
Stripe says that because the RBA is reducing interchange caps, it is passing the savings on: from October 1, 2026 its standard Australian domestic card pricing falls from 1.70% + A$0.30 to 1.65% + A$0.30 online, and from 1.70% + A$0.10 to 1.65% + A$0.10 on Stripe Terminal; from April 1, 2027 international cards fall from 3.50% to 2.80%.4 The RBA expects the changes to lower businesses’ costs, and says small businesses should benefit most because they tend to pay fees closer to the existing caps.1 How fast a cap change reaches any one business still depends on its own contract, which the RBA’s transparency measures are meant to make easier to compare.13
What it asks of a business
Most of the effort sits with whoever sets up checkout. The RBA says many payment providers planned to remove surcharging functionality on their terminals around October 1, 2026, and that a payment made on or after that date may no longer allow a surcharge even if the invoice was issued earlier.3 Stripe says it disables surcharging support for online and in-person card payments in Australia, and that anyone whose checkout, point-of-sale system or third-party tool adds a surcharge had to remove that logic first; it won’t remove surcharge code or signage from systems the business or third parties run, and no new Stripe agreement is needed.5 The two published dates still to come are October 30, 2026, when networks and large acquirers begin publishing fee information, and January 30, 2027, when large acquirers begin publishing how interchange cuts reached merchant fees.3
Sources
- Reserve Bank of Australia, Media Release 2026-10: Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Paper, March 31, 2026, retrieved 2026-10-23.
- Reserve Bank of Australia, Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Paper, March 2026 (Chapter 3, Interchange Fees), retrieved 2026-10-23.
- Reserve Bank of Australia, Conclusions Paper FAQs, retrieved 2026-10-23.
- Stripe, Updates to card pricing in Australia from October 2026, retrieved 2026-10-23; and Stripe Australia pricing, retrieved 2026-10-23.
- Stripe, Australia is removing card surcharges: what Stripe users need to know, retrieved 2026-10-23.