Australia to ban card surcharges on major networks from October 2026

Starting 1 October 2026, Australian retailers and vendors will be prohibited from applying surcharges on debit, prepaid, and credit card payments made via EFTPOS, Mastercard, and Visa networks. This change is being implemented through new Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) standards that allow these networks to prohibit surcharging within their merchant agreements.

While American Express, JCB, and UnionPay are not mandated by the RBA's designated-card standards, American Express has voluntarily elected to end surcharging on the same date. The reforms also include lowering domestic interchange fee caps to reduce merchant service costs, with additional transparency measures and foreign card interchange caps scheduled for April 2027.

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) has expressed concerns regarding the timing of these changes. While supporting fee reductions, COSBOA argued that banning surcharges before businesses are certain that lower interchange fees will actually reduce their costs could inadvertently shift the financial burden onto small businesses.