From 1 October 2026, Australian businesses can no longer add a surcharge when a customer pays by eftpos, Mastercard or Visa, whether that card is debit, prepaid or credit. The cost of accepting cards does not disappear under the Reserve Bank’s decision; it simply moves onto you, so it now has to be built into your pricing like any other cost of doing business.

If you run an established business that takes card payments, this is one of the few regulatory changes that hits your margin directly and immediately. The good news is it is manageable, and the owners who deal with it deliberately will barely feel it. I am Mina Baselyous, a CPA and Chartered Tax Advisor, and this is how we are helping Melbourne business owners respond, protect their margin, and avoid the common mistakes.

What has actually changed

From 1 October 2026, surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa is banned across Australia, following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s final decision handed down on 31 March 2026. That covers debit, prepaid and credit cards on those networks. You can no longer pass the card-acceptance fee to the customer as a separate line at the terminal.

The ban does not cover every card. American Express, Diners Club, PayPal, and Buy Now Pay Later services such as Afterpay and Zip sit outside it, so surcharging on those is still permitted where it reflects your genuine cost. Alongside the ban, the RBA has lowered the wholesale interchange fees that sit inside your merchant costs, capping domestic debit at 8 cents plus 0.16 percent per transaction, consumer credit at 0.30 percent, and commercial credit at 0.80 percent. The RBA estimates the combined reforms will save consumers and businesses around 1.8 billion dollars a year (RBA, 2026).

Why this matters for your margin

The key point owners miss is that the cost has not been abolished, it has been reallocated to you. Where you previously recovered 1 to 1.5 percent of card sales directly from the customer, from 1 October that amount comes straight off your bottom line unless you have repriced for it. For a business doing 70 percent of its turnover on cards, that can be a meaningful dent in net profit.

In our experience working with owners, the trap is treating this as a minor admin change rather than a pricing decision. The lower interchange caps will reduce your underlying merchant fees over time, which softens the blow, but the timing and size of that benefit depends on your provider and your card mix. You should not assume the two cancel out. Model it on your own numbers.

Less admin at the counter, but a pricing question to answer

One upside is less friction at the point of sale. With surcharging gone on the main networks, there is no more adding a percentage at the terminal and no awkward conversation about debit versus credit. The customer sees one price and pays it. That is a cleaner experience, but it shifts the question from “how do I surcharge” to “how do I price so my margin still works”.

Your options as a business owner

There are four realistic ways to respond, and most established businesses use a combination. The right mix depends on your margins, your competitors, and how price-sensitive your customers are. You treat card acceptance the way you already treat rent, wages and insurance: a cost of doing business that your prices must cover.

• Absorb the cost. If your margins are healthy and card fees are a small share of turnover, you may simply wear it. Simplest option, but it comes straight off net profit, so only choose it deliberately, not by default.
• Lift prices across the board. Build the card cost into your pricing the same way you build in every other overhead. A modest, even increase across your range is usually invisible to customers and keeps your margin intact. For most owners this is the cleanest answer.
• Raise prices and offer a cash or bank-transfer discount. Set your list prices to cover card costs, then reward customers who pay by cash or direct transfer. This is allowed, but it must be a genuine discount off a real price, not a surcharge dressed up as a discount, so take advice on how you present it.
• Stop accepting certain cards. You can decline Amex or BNPL if their cost is too high, and you are still free to surcharge those. Declining eftpos, Mastercard and Visa altogether is rarely wise, because cards drive sales and convenience, but it is an option at the margins.

Separately from pricing, review the merchant side itself. Ask your provider to confirm the lower interchange caps are flowing through, check whether least-cost routing (sending contactless debit via the cheapest network) is switched on, and compare providers. We often find the quickest win is not a price rise at all, it is a better merchant plan.

What it means for prices and inflation

Expect some businesses to lift prices to recover the cost, which puts mild upward pressure on headline prices. In practice the effect is small and uneven: the lower interchange caps reduce the underlying cost at the same time, and competitive pressure limits how far prices can move. For a well-run business, a considered one-off reprice is enough; there is no need to overcorrect.

How Pinnacle helps you respond

This is exactly the kind of decision we work through with clients before it hits the numbers, not after. We quantify what card acceptance actually costs you as a percentage of revenue, model the price change needed to protect your margin, review your merchant fees and least-cost routing, and make sure any cash-discount approach is set up correctly. As Mina Baselyous (CPA, CTA, Registered Tax Agent) puts it, the owners who win here are the ones who treat a few cents on the dollar as a pricing decision, not a terminal setting.

If you want a clear read on the margin impact for your business and the right pricing response, our Virtual CFO and tax planning services are built for exactly this, and strong cash flow and debtor management make the change easier to absorb.

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