The Card Surcharge Ban: What It Costs Venues, and How to Offset It
From 1 October 2026, most card surcharges are gone. Here's what changes, what stays, and how to claw back the margin before it hits your bottom line.
In hospitality, profit is a game of millimetres. Most venues run on a net margin of 3 to 5 percent. So when the RBA hands down a reform that shaves off another sliver, it matters. From 1 October 2026, the ban on debit and credit card surcharges does exactly that.
From that date, you can no longer pass merchant fees on to customers for eftpos, Visa and Mastercard transactions. For the roughly 16 percent of Australian businesses currently surcharging, that's not a policy tweak, it's a direct hit. The RBA estimates the reform saves consumers around $1.6 billion a year while shifting an estimated $910 million cost burden back onto merchants.
Here's the no-nonsense breakdown: what's changing, what isn't, and how to protect your margin.
What's actually changing
The RBA's package is a three-part shift, all aimed at "price transparency":
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Surcharge ban | From 1 Oct 2026 you can't add a card surcharge on eftpos, Visa or Mastercard, flat fee or percentage. |
| Lower interchange fees | The fees you pay banks are being capped lower to soften the blow (for example, credit interchange dropping toward 0.3%). |
| Fee transparency | Providers must be clearer about what they charge, making it easier to shop around for a better rate. |
Treat the specific percentages as indicative of the reform's direction and confirm the final figures with the RBA and your payment provider.
What stays
Just as important is what the ban doesn't touch:
- Weekend and public holiday surcharges: these exist to offset penalty rates under Fair Work, not to recover card fees. You can, and many venues should, keep using them to manage labour costs.
- Amex and buy-now-pay-later: for now the ban doesn't explicitly cover American Express or services like Afterpay, though the RBA has said it's keeping them under review.
The profit gap that's left
Even with lower interchange, the maths doesn't fully square. If you were surcharging 1.5 percent to cover your total merchant fee and your new capped cost lands around 0.5 percent, you're still absorbing roughly 1 percent on every card sale.
On a venue doing $1 million a year in card sales, that's about $10,000 in profit, gone. You've got two levers:
- Raise prices: bake the cost into the menu. Industry bodies expect widespread price rises around 1 October 2026 as venues do exactly this.
- Cut overheads: if you can't charge more, you spend less. This is the lever you actually control.
The play: cut the software tax
You can't move the RBA and you can't lean on the banks. But your tech stack is entirely yours to change. For a lot of venues, moving to free software recovers enough to offset most of the surcharge hit on its own.
With Shiftly, that's:
- Rostering, for free.
- Time tracking, for free.
- Award calculation tools, for free.
- Xero export, for free.
Competitors charge $6 to $22 per user per month for the same core tooling. On a 20-person team that's real money, every month, that you could put toward the surcharge gap instead of a subscription. Stop subsidising legacy software while the reforms squeeze your margin, and redirect that spend to your kitchen, your team and your buffer.
Frequently asked questions
When does the card surcharge ban start?
The ban on debit and credit card surcharges for eftpos, Visa and Mastercard applies from 1 October 2026. Interchange fee caps and transparency measures form part of the same RBA reform package.
Can I still add a weekend or public holiday surcharge?
Yes. Weekend and public holiday surcharges are a separate mechanism, allowed to help offset penalty rates, and they aren't affected by the card surcharge ban. Just make sure they're clearly disclosed to customers.
Does the ban cover Amex or Afterpay?
Not explicitly, at least for now. The reform targets eftpos, Visa and Mastercard. American Express and buy-now-pay-later services sit outside the current ban, though the RBA has signalled it's watching them.
How can software help offset the surcharge cost?
Software doesn't change your card fees, but cutting your subscription costs frees up margin to absorb them. Switching from paid rostering tools to a free platform like Shiftly can recover a chunk of the gap, and better labour-cost visibility helps you protect the rest.
The bottom line
The surcharge ban is coming whether you're ready or not. You can't stop the cost landing, but you can decide where it lands. Trim the overheads you control, starting with software you're overpaying for, and put the difference toward the margin the reform is taking. See how much a free rostering platform frees up.
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