The RBA announced on 31 March 2026 that card surcharges will be banned from 1 October 2026 on Visa, Mastercard, eftpos, and other designated card networks. To offset the cost to businesses, the RBA is also lowering interchange fee caps. Businesses should review their pricing and payment provider arrangements before the October deadline.

If you currently add a card surcharge to recover payment costs, your window to prepare is shorter than you think. Here is exactly what is changing, what it means for your business, and how to stay profitable without surcharging.

What Is the RBA Surcharge Announcement? (And Why It Matters Right Now)

On 31 March 2026, the Reserve Bank of Australia released its final Conclusions Paper on merchant card payment reforms — the most significant shake-up to Australian payment rules in over a decade.

The RBA's Payments System Board concluded that card surcharges have become a source of consumer confusion and inconsistency, with businesses applying wildly different rates for the same card types. The RBA's view is that lower interchange fees will make surcharging unnecessary, and that removing it altogether will create a cleaner, fairer experience for both consumers and merchants.

For Australian business owners, this matters right now because 1 October 2026 is only five months away. That is not enough time to be passive. Businesses that currently rely on surcharging to protect their margins need to understand the full picture before that date arrives.

The reforms affect anyone who accepts card payments — retailers, hospitality venues, health clinics, tradespeople, market stallholders, and online merchants. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which enforces excessive surcharge rules, the current framework has generated ongoing complaints from consumers who feel stung by inconsistent charges. The new rules aim to end that friction entirely.

What Changes Are Actually Coming — and When?

Three distinct reforms are being introduced in two stages: a surcharge ban, lower interchange fee caps, and new transparency requirements for payment providers.

Here is the timeline broken down clearly:

Stage 1 — 1 October 2026

• Surcharge ban on designated card networks. From this date, businesses cannot add a surcharge to payments made by Visa, Mastercard, eftpos, or other RBA-designated card networks. This applies to in-person, online, and phone payments.
• New receipt and disclosure requirements. Payment providers will face stricter rules around what they must disclose to merchants about fees. If your provider has been vague about what you actually pay, that changes.

Stage 2 — 1 April 2027

• Lower interchange fee caps take effect. The RBA is reducing the caps on interchange fees — the wholesale fees that flow from merchants' banks to cardholders' banks every time a card is used. These lower caps are expected to reduce costs across the entire merchant payment ecosystem.

The Australian Banking Association notes that under the current framework, interchange fees vary significantly by card type and tier, which is part of why surcharging became so common — merchants were trying to pass through costs they could not predict. The new structure is designed to make those costs more stable and transparent.

The key takeaway: surcharging disappears in October 2026, but the fee relief that is meant to compensate for it does not fully arrive until April 2027. That six-month gap is something every business owner needs to factor into their planning.

What Does a Surcharge Ban Mean for Your Business in Practice?

When surcharging is banned, any cost of accepting card payments becomes a cost of doing business — absorbed into your pricing, not passed on at point of sale.

That is a significant shift for many Australian businesses. Consider a café owner who currently adds a 1.5% weekend surcharge to cover card processing costs on busy days. Under the new rules, that surcharge disappears. The café owner has two realistic options:

1. Absorb the cost and accept a slightly lower margin on card transactions.
2. Raise menu prices to reflect the true cost of doing business, removing the surcharge and baking the cost into every item.

Most payment specialists recommend option two — transparent, consistent pricing is better for customer trust and easier to manage operationally. But this requires knowing exactly what you pay per transaction, so you can price accurately.

This is where your choice of merchant services provider becomes critical. If you are paying a blended or tiered rate that varies by card type, building that cost into your pricing is genuinely difficult. A flat, predictable fee makes it straightforward.

For market stallholders and smaller retailers, the change actually simplifies things. A small market trader who has just started taking card payments no longer needs to decide whether to configure surcharging, explain it to customers, or worry about getting the rate wrong. The RBA surcharge ban removes that decision entirely — and a simple flat-fee payment setup covers everything from there.

Will Lower Interchange Fees Actually Offset the Loss of Surcharging?

The RBA estimates that lower interchange fee caps will save Australian businesses approximately $910 million per year — but the benefit will not be evenly distributed.

That $910 million figure is significant. It represents real money flowing back to merchants who have been absorbing interchange costs for years. However, there are three important qualifications:

• The savings depend on what you currently pay. Large businesses with negotiated rates already close to the floor will see limited additional benefit. Small businesses paying closer to the maximum cap will see the most meaningful reduction.
• The timing gap matters. The surcharge ban starts October 2026. The lower interchange caps do not take effect until April 2027. That is a six-month window where businesses lose the ability to surcharge but do not yet have lower underlying costs.
• Your provider's margins sit on top of interchange. Lower interchange fees benefit merchants only if payment providers pass those savings on. Providers with opaque pricing structures may quietly absorb some of that reduction.

The practical advice: do not assume the interchange savings will automatically cover your loss of surcharge revenue. Run the numbers for your business specifically. A payment provider that charges a flat 1% regardless of card type — like APS — gives you the certainty to do that calculation accurately.

How Retail, Hospitality, Health, and Market Businesses Should Prepare Now

Every business that currently accepts card payments should take four concrete actions before 1 October 2026.

Retail Businesses

1. Review your current surcharge settings on every EFTPOS terminal. Document what you currently charge and for which card types.
2. Model your true cost of card acceptance — total card fees paid last month divided by total card turnover gives you a realistic blended rate.
3. Decide whether to adjust your RRP (recommended retail price) to absorb card costs, and update pricing accordingly before the ban takes effect.
4. Check your payment provider contract for any clauses around fee changes or exit terms.

Hospitality Venues

1. Remove weekend and public holiday surcharges from your terminal settings before 1 October 2026. Note: weekend and public holiday labour surcharges are a separate matter under Fair Work rules — those remain legal. Only card payment surcharges are banned.
2. Recalculate menu pricing to absorb card costs if you plan to maintain margins.
3. Brief your front-of-house staff so they can answer customer questions confidently.
4. Review your payment terminal provider — this is a good moment to reassess whether your current provider offers competitive EFTPOS surcharge-free processing costs.

Health Clinics

1. Update your booking and payment systems — many practice management platforms automatically apply card surcharges. These settings will need to be disabled.
2. Communicate the change to patients — removing surcharges is good news for patients, and proactive communication builds goodwill.
3. Review bulk-billing and gap payment processes for card acceptance costs.
4. Ensure your payment provider can clearly explain what you pay per transaction, as new transparency rules will require this anyway.

Market Stalls and Mobile Businesses

1. If you have been avoiding card payments to avoid surcharge complexity, the new rules make card acceptance simpler — not harder.
2. Choose a payment provider with a flat per-transaction fee — this makes cost modelling easy and removes any need for surcharge configuration.
3. Test your card reader and connectivity at your usual trading location before October.
4. Update your price signage to reflect all-inclusive pricing.

What to Look for in a Merchant Services Provider Under the New Rules

In a post-surcharge environment, the quality and transparency of your merchant services provider becomes your primary lever for controlling card payment costs.

Ask your current provider these questions directly:

• What is my blended effective rate? (Total fees divided by total transaction value — not the headline rate.)
• Do fees vary by card type? Visa vs Mastercard vs AMEX vs eftpos — are you paying different rates for each?
• Are there monthly fees, terminal rental fees, or minimum monthly charges on top of your transaction rate?
• What happens if I want to leave? Exit fees and lock-in contracts become a bigger issue when surcharging is gone and you cannot offset costs externally.
• How will lower interchange fees be passed on to me? Get a written commitment.

The ideal structure under the new rules is simple: one flat transaction fee, all card types covered, no lock-in contract, and complete transparency on what you pay. That is the benchmark to measure any provider against.

How APS Simplifies Card Payment Costs for Australian Businesses

APS offers Australian businesses a flat 1% transaction fee with no lock-in contract, covering Mastercard, Visa, AMEX, JCB, eftpos, and UnionPay — one of the most straightforward fee structures available as surcharging disappears.

In a post-surcharge world, APS gives business owners exactly what they need: a single, predictable number. If you turn over $50,000 in card payments in a month, you know your card processing cost is $500. No blended rates, no card-type variables, no surprise monthly minimums to decode.

That simplicity is genuinely valuable right now. Businesses preparing to absorb card costs into their pricing — rather than passing them on via surcharges — need to know their actual cost with precision. APS makes that calculation straightforward.

APS supports the full range of card networks that Australian consumers use, meaning you do not lose sales because your terminal does not accept a particular card type. For hospitality venues, retailers, and health businesses updating their systems ahead of October 2026, that coverage matters.

There is no lock-in contract. If the regulatory environment changes further — and the RBA has signalled ongoing review of card payment reforms beyond 2027 — businesses using APS retain the flexibility to adapt without penalty.

For businesses comparing options, providers like Square, Tyro, and Stripe all operate in this space. APS distinguishes itself with its flat-rate simplicity and the absence of tiered pricing that makes cost modelling difficult.

Learn more about APS's merchant payment solutions at aps.business.

Get Your Business Ready for October 2026

The RBA surcharge ban is not a future concern — it is a five-month planning window. Businesses that act now will have time to adjust their pricing, update their systems, and lock in a payment provider with the right fee structure before the deadline hits.

APS offers the transparency and simplicity that the new payments landscape demands: a flat 1% transaction fee, all major card networks covered, and no lock-in contract. Whether you run a café, a retail store, a health clinic, or a market stall, APS gives you a single, predictable number to build your post-surcharge pricing around.

Do not wait until September to figure this out. Visit aps.business today and get your card payment costs under control before 1 October 2026.