October 1 isn't far away.

From 1 October 2026, the Reserve Bank's ban on card surcharges takes effect — EFTPOS, Visa and Mastercard, across debit, prepaid and credit. If your business adds a surcharge at checkout, in-store or online, that pricing needs to be reworked before the date lands.

Who this actually affects

Roughly 16% of Australian businesses currently surcharge — concentrated in hospitality, retail and medical. If that's you, this is the one to act on now: surcharge lines need to come out of your pricing, and the cost either gets absorbed or built into your rates properly.

For the other 84%, the change is mostly administrative — no surcharge to unwind, just terminal settings and receipts to check.

The quieter part of the reform

Alongside the ban, the RBA is also cutting interchange caps — credit from 0.8% to 0.3%, debit from 0.2% to 0.16%. Nationally, that's an estimated $910M a year back in merchants' pockets. It's had less airtime than the surcharge ban, but for most businesses it's the bigger long-term win: genuinely lower processing costs, not just a pricing rule change.

What to do before October 1

• Check whether you currently surcharge. If yes, work out how that cost gets built back into your pricing — don't leave it to be absorbed by accident.

• Confirm your terminal and provider are ready. Not every setup handles the transition cleanly.

• Ask what the interchange cut actually saves you. It's a genuine reduction — worth knowing the number for your business, not just the headline.

Find out what you're actually paying

Send a recent merchant statement and we'll come back with a plain comparison — what changes under the ban, what the interchange cut saves you, and whether your current setup is still the right fit. No obligation.
Make an enquiry.