What do I need to do before October 2026?

Your before-October checklist

From 1 October 2026, surcharging eftpos, Mastercard and Visa — debit, prepaid and credit — is no longer permitted, so a few steps now save trouble later. First, find your blended (effective) rate: total card fees divided by total card turnover for a recent month, which tells you what acceptance actually costs you. Second, arrange to switch off card surcharging on covered cards in your terminal and online checkout before the date. Third, review your pricing so the card cost is accounted for once you can no longer add it at the till. Fourth, compare your current rate against the market — the merchant service fee itself isn’t capped, so shopping around is where any saving comes from. Fifth, confirm least-cost routing is enabled, since routing dual-network debit to the cheaper network can meaningfully reduce debit costs.

What the ban does and doesn’t change

The change removes the surcharge on covered cards; it does not remove the underlying merchant fee, which still applies on every card transaction. Interchange caps also start on 1 October 2026 (consumer credit and domestic debit/prepaid both fall), but interchange is only one component of your fee — a saving reaches you only if your provider passes it through, which is part of why comparing matters. A few things stay allowed: you can still offer a discount for cash or bank transfer, and surcharges unrelated to cards (such as a weekend or public-holiday surcharge) are not affected. What you cannot do is rename a card-only surcharge as an “admin fee”, since a fee that only applies to card payments is still a surcharge.

Source: RBA Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging — Conclusions Paper (March 2026).