Businesses could pass on card surcharges only under the rules that applied before 1 October 2026. Those rules have now been replaced by card-network no-surcharge rules. Review your pricing and payment setup with your provider. See the ACCC guidance for businesses.

Card payment costs after the surcharge change

With card surcharges no longer allowed, businesses need to consider how card acceptance costs are reflected in their prices.

The RBA lowered interchange fee caps for domestic card transactions from 1 October 2026. Interchange fees are the wholesale fees that banks charge each other to process transactions, which are ultimately passed down to you in your merchant fees. How this affects your merchant fees depends on your payment provider and agreement. While it may not completely eliminate the cost of accepting cards, it aims to make the fees significantly more manageable for small business owners.

Steps to adjust your pricing model

Now that card surcharges have ended, include card acceptance costs in your pricing rather than adding a card surcharge at payment.

Review your prices and payment setup with your provider. Any price changes should be clear to customers.

To do this accurately, you need to know your numbers. Let us look at a hypothetical scenario. Say your business processes $20,000 in card payments every month, and your merchant statements show that your average card processing cost is 1.5%. That means you are paying $300 a month in merchant fees.

With card surcharges no longer allowed, that $300 example shows the monthly payment-processing cost the business needs to consider in its overall pricing. If you issue 50 invoices a month, you would adjust your base pricing by a small margin to ensure that the $300 cost is absorbed naturally across your services, without your clients seeing a separate surcharge line on their bill. Doing this gradually now means your clients won’t experience a sudden price jump in October 2026.

Track your card acceptance costs

With surcharges no longer available, accurate records help you understand what your business pays to accept card payments and review prices accordingly.

By working with a structured bookkeeping team, you can easily run reports to see your exact transaction costs over the last year. Use those figures to review your pricing with your payment provider now that the new card-network rules are in effect.

If you want to get a clear picture of your business expenses and review your pricing structure ahead of these changes, get in touch with About Business Bookkeeping today.