From 1 October 2026, designated card schemes (e.g. Eftpos, Visa and Mastercard) can each ban surcharging on their networks. For payment providers, it is important to confirm the position your scheme has or will take and to start reviewing your merchant agreements.
What is changing
On 1 October 2026, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) removal of its prohibition on “no-surcharge” rules takes effect. That prohibition, contained in Standard No. 3 of 2016, has for two decades stopped card schemes from telling merchants they cannot surcharge card payments. Each scheme is now free to make its own call around whether to ban merchant surcharging.
Eftpos, Mastercard, Visa, and even American Express have confirmed a zero-surcharge position ahead of the October deadline.
Payment providers that sit between merchants and the schemes need to consider what steps to take ahead of the changes coming into effect.The changes apply to only surcharges that are added because a customer decides to pay by card. The change will not apply to service surcharges for weekends or public holidays or booking or service fees.
A return to where surcharging started
A scheme-imposed surcharge ban is not novel. Before the RBA’s surcharging framework was introduced in the early 2000s, the card schemes’ own rules prohibited merchants from passing on card acceptance surcharges at all. The RBA’s intervention two decades ago was designed to let merchants recover the cost of accepting cards and to steer consumers toward cheaper payment methods. What we are seeing from 1 October 2026 is, in substance, a reversion to that earlier position of card schemes banning surcharges. This means schemes regaining the contractual right to prohibit surcharging outright, rather than the RBA regulating surcharge levels.
Key things to keep in mind
Payment providers (including payment facilitators) need to understand their obligations from 1 October 2026. If you have not heard from a scheme you partner with, reach out to them to confirm their position.
Payment providers are likely to need to review and update merchant agreements, as it is likely schemes will place obligations on payment providers to prohibit merchants from surcharging that scheme’s transactions from the relevant date entirely. It would no longer be acceptable to only prohibit a surcharge which exceeds the cost of acceptance.
An agreement that is silent or that still permits surcharging in a way a scheme’s rules no longer allow, exposes both payment providers and merchants to breaches of scheme rules.
Payment providers may also need to communicate and work with merchants to get them ready in advance of the changes.
If you need help reviewing your existing merchant agreements or interpreting a scheme’s updated rules, let us know.
For more information, please contact Jaime Lumsden and Ruth Fesseha.
