What Australian Businesses Need to Know

If your business accepts card payments, there is an important change to be aware of from 1 October 2026.

Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and American Express have introduced no-surcharge rules for card payments on their networks. This means businesses accepting the affected credit, debit and prepaid cards can no longer add a separate surcharge because a customer chooses to pay using that card.

UnionPay has also announced a no-surcharge rule from 1 October, while PayPal’s change takes effect from 5 October 2026.

There has understandably been a lot of attention on what this means at the checkout.

From a bookkeeping perspective, though, there is another part of this change that I think is worth understanding.

The surcharge may disappear, but the cost of accepting the payment doesn’t necessarily disappear with it.

And those costs still need to be understood and recorded correctly in your books.

What has actually changed with card surcharges?

Until 30 September 2026, Australian businesses could generally apply a surcharge to certain card payments, provided the surcharge did not exceed the business's cost of accepting that particular payment type.

From 1 October, the major card networks have changed their rules.

Visa, Mastercard and eftpos have introduced no-surcharge rules following changes made by the Reserve Bank of Australia to the regulatory framework. American Express has also introduced a no-surcharge rule from the same date.

In practical terms, if your business accepts these affected cards, you should no longer be adding a separate card surcharge to the customer's payment.

This doesn't mean every type of surcharge or fee has disappeared.

The changes specifically relate to card payment surcharges. They don't automatically prevent businesses from charging legitimate weekend surcharges, public holiday surcharges, booking fees, delivery fees or other charges that are genuinely separate from the customer's choice to pay by a particular card.

Simply renaming a card surcharge as another type of fee isn't the answer either. The ACCC specifically warns businesses against trying to avoid the new rules by describing what is effectively a card payment surcharge as something else.

Your merchant fees haven't necessarily disappeared

This is the part I think can easily get lost in the conversation.

Your customer might no longer see an extra percentage added to their bill for paying by card, but your business may still be paying to accept that payment.

Payment providers can still charge businesses for services such as processing transactions, providing payment terminals and other payment-related services. The RBA makes it clear that these merchant costs are different from a surcharge charged to the customer.

So if you previously used card surcharges to recover some or all of those costs, it is worth understanding what you're actually paying now.

Look at your merchant statements. Check the transaction fees. Understand whether you pay a percentage, a fixed amount, a monthly fee or a combination of different charges.

The RBA also suggests businesses review whether their current payment plan is suitable for their needs and compare payment service providers where appropriate.

You don't need to become an expert in payment processing, but you should know what it costs your business to get paid.

There is a bookkeeping side to merchant fees too

Something I always think is important with payment platforms is understanding the difference between what the customer paid and what eventually arrived in the bank account.

They aren't always the same number.

Imagine a customer purchases something from your business for $100.

The customer pays $100 by card.

Your payment provider deducts a $2 merchant processing fee before transferring the money to you.

Your bank receives $98.

If you only look at the bank feed, you see $98.

But that doesn't necessarily mean you made a $98 sale.

The customer paid $100. The difference relates to the cost of processing that payment.

That distinction matters when you're recording and reconciling transactions in your bookkeeping system.

Depending on how your payment platform and Xero are set up, the transaction may need to reflect the gross sale, the merchant fee and the amount ultimately deposited into the bank.

The exact GST treatment and accounting will depend on the transactions and fees involved, so this is an area where I would rather check the supporting information than make assumptions based purely on the amount appearing in the bank feed.

A bank deposit doesn't always tell the whole story

This is one reason I don't think bookkeeping should be approached as simply matching whatever appears in the bank account.

The bank feed tells you money came in.

It doesn't necessarily tell you the full story behind that money.

With payment platforms, there can be sales, refunds, merchant fees and multiple customer transactions grouped into a single settlement before the money reaches the bank.

If you only look at the final deposit, you may be missing some of what happened before that amount arrived.

This is also why a transaction showing as reconciled in Xero doesn't automatically tell you that the bookkeeping behind it is correct.

The question isn't only, "Does this amount match?"

I also want to understand, "What does this amount represent?"

That is a small difference in the way you look at bookkeeping, but an important one.

Should businesses increase their prices?

The removal of card surcharges doesn't automatically mean every business should increase its prices.

What it does mean is that businesses that previously recovered card-processing costs through a separate surcharge may want to review their overall pricing and payment costs.

The RBA says businesses will continue to incur costs when accepting card payments and that these costs can instead be reflected in overall pricing. It has also introduced other reforms aimed at reducing merchant card-payment costs and improving fee transparency.

Whether your own prices need to change is a broader commercial decision.

From a bookkeeping perspective, the useful starting point is having reliable information.

How much are you paying in merchant fees?

How many transactions are being processed?

Which payment methods are your customers using?

How significant are those costs to your business?

Good records make those questions much easier to answer.

What should you check now?

If your business accepts card payments, I would start with the practical things.

Check whether a surcharge is still being applied anywhere in your payment process. That might include an EFTPOS terminal, online checkout, invoicing system, payment link or other payment platform.

Your payment service provider may have automatically removed or disabled surcharge functionality, but I wouldn't assume everything has updated correctly without checking. The ACCC recommends that businesses review their pricing, update customer-facing information and speak with their payment provider about any required changes to terminals or payment systems.

Then look at the bookkeeping side.

Do you know how your merchant fees are being recorded?

If your payment provider deposits net settlements into your bank, are the underlying sales and fees being captured correctly?

If several transactions are combined into one deposit, can you reconcile that settlement back to the transactions behind it?

And if something doesn't make sense, investigate it rather than simply choosing an account in Xero so the transaction disappears from the reconciliation screen.

One change, but several things to look at

The card surcharge changes might seem like a payment-system issue rather than a bookkeeping issue.

But this is exactly why I find bookkeeping interesting.

A change at the checkout can affect your payment systems, merchant costs, pricing and the transactions eventually appearing in Xero.

Looking at the $98 that landed in the bank is easy.

Understanding why it was $98, what the customer actually paid and how the difference should be recorded is the part that matters.

Good bookkeeping should reflect what actually happened in the business, not simply make the bank reconciliation screen look tidy.

If you're reviewing how payment platforms and merchant fees are being recorded in your business and something doesn't look right, it's worth checking the setup and the transactions behind it.

Patricia Zapata Bookkeeping provides ongoing bookkeeping, Xero, payroll and BAS services to businesses on the Gold Coast and across Australia.

[Book a free 30-minute introductory call] to discuss your bookkeeping needs.

Sources

For current information about the changes to card surcharging, see the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) guidance on card surcharges and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) FAQs on the removal of card payment surcharges.