Surcharges and payment fees: where you can charge, and how to show it

Card acceptance costs money, and it is tempting to pass that cost to the customer who chooses the expensive method. In some countries that is a normal, regulated practice. In others it is banned outright, and in Australia it stopped being allowed only last month. A store selling across borders can be on both sides of that line in the same checkout.

This article sets out when a merchant may add a fee for a payment method in the EU, the UK, the US and Australia, what the card schemes add on top, and how a fee must be shown. Rules change and vary by country, so treat this as a map for a conversation with your acquirer and your lawyer, not as legal advice. Other cost questions, such as multi-currency pricing and DCC and interchange++ pricing, have their own articles.

Where can you charge a fee for a payment method?

The short answer: rarely for consumers in Europe, not on the main card networks in Australia, and with limits in much of the US.

Market	Consumer cards	Business cards	Key limit
EU and EEA	Banned on EEA-issued cards	Varies by country	Direct cost, where allowed
United Kingdom	Banned	Allowed	Cost borne by the merchant
United States	Credit allowed unless a state bars it; debit not allowed	Credit allowed on the same terms	Visa 3%, Mastercard 4%, and your own cost
Australia	Removed on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa from 1 October 2026	Not exempt unless a network rule or law says so	Network rules

Sources: PSD2, Adyen, UK Regulations 2012, Visa Rules and the Reserve Bank of Australia. The sections below explain each row.

What is the EU rule?

PSD2 sets the ban. Article 62(4) says the payee must not request charges for payment instruments whose interchange fees are regulated under Chapter II of the Interchange Fee Regulation, or for payment services covered by the SEPA Regulation. In practice, that means consumer debit and credit cards issued under four-party schemes, and euro credit transfers and direct debits. The Council’s first-reading text of the new Payment Services Regulation estimates that 95% of card payments are subject to the existing ban.

Three things sit around that core.

• Business cards. Adyen says commercial cards issued in the EEA vary by country. Stripe says corporate card payments are not covered by the ban for business customers, but euro direct debits and credit transfers are.
• Cards from outside the EEA. Adyen says these carry no restrictions, and Stripe says the ban applies where the issuer and the merchant’s provider are both in the EEA. Stripe adds that surcharges outside the ban still cannot exceed the cost of accepting that method, which is a stricter reading than “no restrictions”. EU consumer law supports it: Article 19 of the Consumer Rights Directive bans fees to consumers above the trader’s cost.
• National law. Article 62(5) lets member states prohibit or limit charges further. Adyen notes that some countries have their own caps, so check each country you sell from.

PSD2 also protects discounts. Article 62(3) says a provider cannot stop a payee offering a reduction or steering a customer towards a given instrument. Our article on PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation covers what changes next: the agreed text extends the ban to all credit transfers and direct debits in the EU, not only euro ones, but it is not yet in force.

What is the UK rule?

The UK ban is wider than the EU one. Regulation 6A of the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 says a payee must not charge a payer any fee for payment by card-based instruments other than commercial cards, non-card instruments that would not count as commercial, or euro credit transfers and direct debits. Stripe says HM Treasury’s extension reaches cards from three-party schemes such as American Express, non-euro direct debits, Apple Pay and PayPal.

The rule has a cross-border edge. Regulation 6B says the full ban applies where the payment service providers of both payer and payee are in the UK. If only one is, the ban does not apply, but the fee still cannot exceed the costs borne by the payee. Regulation 4 separately stops a trader charging consumers more than cost for a means of payment. A fee that breaks these rules is unenforceable and has to be repaid under regulation 10.

What is the US rule?

Two layers apply: card scheme rules and state law. Schemes first.

Rule	Visa	Mastercard
Cap	3.00%	4%
Also limited by	The merchant’s average discount rate for credit cards	The merchant’s discount rate
Debit and prepaid	Not surchargeable	Not surchargeable
Notice	30 calendar days in writing to the acquirer	No registration at present, per Adyen; rules are being updated in 2026

Sources: Visa Rules (24 October 2026) and Adyen’s surcharge compliance guide. Mastercard’s own rules page could not be opened for this article, so its figures come from Adyen.

Visa lets a merchant surcharge at brand level, meaning all Visa credit cards, or at product level, meaning one credit product type, but not both, and the amount cannot vary by issuer. It must be included in the transaction amount and identified in the transaction data. Its rule on similar treatment also limits surcharging Visa when a competing credit card brand restricts surcharging in that channel. Payment Review reports that the revised US settlement would remove the American Express link, but nothing changes until final approval.

Adyen notes that local regulation takes precedence over network rules, and it warns that the schemes use mystery shopping, with fines from USD 1,000 to USD 25,000. Stripe’s guide, updated 10 August 2026, lists Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico as prohibiting surcharges, and says Colorado caps them at 2% or actual processing cost. It warns that these rules change through legislation and litigation, so confirm with your state’s attorney general or a payments lawyer.

New York shows how far display rules can go. The state’s Department of State says a business may pass on the actual cost of processing, but must display the highest total price, excluding sales tax. A sign at the register or a line on the receipt alone is not enough.

What changed in Australia on 1 October 2026?

Surcharging ended on the main networks. The Reserve Bank of Australia said in March 2026 that surcharges would be removed on debit, prepaid and credit cards on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks. Its FAQ says the networks’ no-surcharge rules generally apply to all such cards, including internationally issued ones. It also says American Express and UnionPay have removed surcharging, and that PayPal’s rule took effect on 5 October 2026.

The detail matters for anyone still running an old checkout:

• Business payments are not automatically exempt. The RBA says exemptions are set by each network.
• Timing follows the payment date. A card payment made on or after 1 October may not be surcharged even if the invoice is older.
• Networks enforce it. The RBA says enforcement falls to the card networks, not to the RBA.
• Other fees are unaffected. Weekend, booking and service fees are not card surcharges.
• Non-card methods are not currently regulated by the RBA; check your provider and ACCC guidance.

Visa’s rules reflect the change. From 1 October 2026, an Australian merchant must be able to show its acquirer, on written request, that a law expressly permits any surcharge it assesses. The RBA says merchants may absorb the cost, build it into prices, or offer discounts for particular methods. See our guide to payments in Australia for the local picture.

How must a surcharge be shown?

Where a fee is allowed, the principle is the same: tell the customer before they pay, and let them leave.

Requirement	Where it applies	Source
Inform the customer of any charge or reduction before the payment starts	EU (agreed text, not yet in force)	PSR Article 6
Communicate the amount and obtain agreement before starting the transaction	Visa Europe	Visa Rules
Disclose on the first page that mentions card brands and on the checkout page	Visa US and Canada, e-commerce	Visa Rules
State the exact amount or percentage, that the merchant is charging it, and that it applies only to credit	Visa US and Canada	Visa Rules
State that the amount is not greater than the discount rate	Visa US	Visa Rules
Allow cancellation or another method before the fee applies	All networks in Adyen’s guide	Adyen
Show the surcharge as a separate receipt line	All networks in Adyen’s guide	Adyen
Refund the surcharge, pro-rated on partial refunds	Visa, listed regions	Visa Rules

The Visa US disclosure has a minimum size for e-commerce: 10-point Arial, and in any case no smaller or less prominent than the surrounding text. In the limited cases where Australia still allows a surcharge, Visa says a merchant must not describe it as set by Visa or a bank; Adyen gives the same advice for all markets.

Example figures, for illustration only. A US store sells a USD 200 order paid by Visa credit. Its average credit card discount rate over the last 12 months is 2.6%. Its cap is 2.6%, not 3%, so the surcharge can be up to USD 5.20. If the customer returns half the order, the store refunds USD 100 plus USD 2.60 of surcharge.

Should you surcharge at all?

Compare the fee with what you might lose. A surcharge at checkout appears at the moment a customer is deciding whether to finish. We quote no conversion figure here, because your own market matters more than an average. Test it on a limited share of traffic before you roll it out.

Before adding a fee, work through these questions.

1. Is it legal in the customer’s country and yours? Check both, and the location of both providers.
2. Which methods can carry it? Remove debit and any banned card type. This needs card-type detection, using the BIN, not only the brand.
3. Would a discount do the job? Visa’s US rules allow discounts for other payment means, and PSD2 and the RBA both accept them. In many markets a discount for a cheaper method carries fewer conditions.
4. Can you lower the cost instead? Compare local and cross-border acquiring and your routing before adding a fee.
5. Can your systems handle it? Receipts, refunds, reconciliation and tax treatment all change.

How does Omno help with payment fees across markets?

Omno’s hosted checkout can be personalised by country, currency and amount, and a no-code builder changes categories, minimum and maximum amounts, routing and fields without a release. So a team can show different methods in different markets and steer customers towards the methods it prefers. Whether any fee applies is the merchant’s decision, under the local rules. The hosted checkout page explains what can be configured.