Card surcharge ban: cover the fees and keep your margin
Work out what the card surcharge ban costs your business, and how to adjust prices, margins and cash flow calmly.
Free guideWhy it matters.
For years, many small businesses passed the cost of card payments straight to customers with a surcharge at checkout. From 1 October 2026 that option is gone for Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and American Express cards, whether credit, debit or prepaid.
If you surcharged, the fees you used to recover now come out of your margin, on every card sale, unless your prices change. Many owners don't know what their card payments really cost them each month, so they can't tell how big the gap is. Raising prices feels risky with customers watching. Leaving them alone quietly eats into profit and cash.
There are traps too. Old invoices still showing a surcharge, point-of-sale systems that add one automatically, and fees renamed as something else can all cause problems. Getting it wrong can mean unhappy customers, a call from your payment provider, or a squeeze on cash you didn't plan for.
What the guide covers.
You'll be able to measure what the surcharge ban costs your business and choose a pricing approach that protects your margin and cash flow.
- How to work out what card payments actually cost your business each month
- How to build card costs into your prices without misleading customers
- What you can still charge, and what now counts as a card surcharge
- The mistakes that catch businesses out with invoices, systems and fee labels
- A checklist for reviewing your payment provider and the fees on your statements
- How to estimate the effect on your margins and weekly cash flow
Don't leave it to chance.
If you used to surcharge and do nothing, those card fees now come out of your profit on every card sale. The ACCC also warns that renaming a card surcharge as another fee, or giving misleading reasons for a price rise, may breach the Australian Consumer Law.
Through our cash flow and budgeting services, we help you see the real numbers before they surprise you. We work out what card payments cost you now, model how different pricing choices flow through to your margin and break-even point, and build the change into a 13-week cash plan. Then we track budgets against actuals, so you can see whether your new prices are covering the cost and adjust early if they aren't.
This page and the guide are general information only and don't consider your personal circumstances. Speak with us before acting on them.