Card Surcharge Ban Takes Effect Nationally From October 1

From 1 October 2026, Australian households will stop seeing card surcharges at the checkout for Visa, Mastercard and eftpos payments, under a Reserve Bank of Australia ban confirmed to take effect nationally.

What Happened

The Reserve Bank of Australia has concluded that removing surcharging for designated card networks is in the public interest, with the ban commencing 1 October 2026. American Express has separately elected to remove its own surcharges from the same date, meaning the change effectively covers the card networks Australian households use every day.

Why It Matters

Card surcharges have become a routine, if unpopular, line item at checkout for everything from cafes to trades. Removing them changes what a household actually pays at the point of sale, though it does not remove the underlying cost of accepting card payments from the economy altogether.

Who Is Affected

Effectively every Australian household that pays by card, along with small businesses that currently apply card surcharges and will need to either absorb the cost or build it into their headline prices instead of charging it separately.

Alongside the surcharge ban, the RBA is also capping interchange fees, the fees paid between banks on card transactions, from 0.8% down to 0.3%. This is intended to offset some of the revenue businesses lose by no longer surcharging, with the RBA estimating combined consumer and business savings of up to $1.8 billion a year.

It is worth being clear about what the ban does not cover. It applies specifically to surcharges added because a customer pays by card. It does not apply to weekend or public holiday surcharges, or to separate booking or service fees, which businesses can continue to charge.

What to Do / What to Watch

From 1 October, check your receipt. A card surcharge should no longer appear as a separate line item at participating businesses. A weekend surcharge, public holiday surcharge or a genuine booking or service fee is a different charge and is still permitted, so do not assume every extra charge on a receipt is a banned card surcharge.

Official Source / Verification

This article is based on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s official FAQs on the removal of payment surcharges from 1 October 2026, current as at 9 September 2026.

This article is general information only and does not constitute financial advice.