> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.notatechguy.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Australia bans card surcharges from October 1 - URL: https://www.notatechguy.com/australia-bans-card-surcharges-from-october-1/ - Published: 2026-09-25T00:49:55.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-25T00:49:55.000Z - Description: From October 1, Australian businesses can no longer add card surcharges, forcing 16% of merchants to absorb or reprice the cost of accepting payments. - Author: Marcello Babbili - Tags: Technology & AI, RBA, Google, Inflation The Reserve Bank of Australia will strip card surcharges from checkout receipts starting October 1, closing a payment practice it authorized in 2003 \[S1, P3\]. Roughly 16% of Australian businesses — among them Aldi, cafes and some tradespeople, will lose the ability to add that extra line to the receipt [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). The rest already absorb the cost. The shift ranks among the most significant changes to Australian retail payments in two decades. The RBA's FAQ page [P³](https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/faqs/?ref=notatechguy.com) and March Conclusions Paper [P⁵](https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-10.html?ref=notatechguy.com) lock in the October 1, 2026 start date. The Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association reports that many small businesses are unprepared [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com), and a cafe that currently passes a 1% Visa fee to the customer must either absorb that cost or reprice every item on the menu by October 1\. The RBA's 0.1% inflation estimate assumes every surcharging merchant builds the full cost into sticker prices — a specific scenario, not a forecast. That estimate has not been independently tested. The rule change reverses a 2003 RBA decision that permitted merchants to pass card acceptance costs directly to customers [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). When the central bank started tracking payment habits in 2007, cash dominated at 69% of transactions while cards accounted for roughly 25% [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). That share has since flipped. Cards now represent nearly three-quarters of all payments — debit cards alone handle 49% of transactions in 2025, with credit cards at another 23% [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). Cash has dropped to about 15% of consumer payments, though it still appears in nearly one in four purchases under $10 [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). ### EFTPOS debit runs about 0.43%, Visa credit closer to 1% Merchant costs differ widely depending on the card network. EFTPOS debit runs businesses about 0.43% of the transaction value, Visa or Mastercard credit cards around 1%, and American Express credit cards up to 1.36% [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). A cafe selling a $5 coffee pays roughly 2 cents when a customer taps an EFTPOS debit card, or about 5 cents on a Visa credit card. A cafe owner processing 300 card transactions a day at those rates will need to fold the cumulative fee burden into menu prices or accept thinner margins [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). ![What businesses pay to accept each card type](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6e/89/6e896869-22ef-4281-a213-b4c462c17cff/content/images/2026/09/chart_1f824041eefa99d2347e.png) Most large retailers — Woolworths, Coles and JB Hi-Fi among them, already absorb these costs and do not surcharge [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). The 16% that do include Aldi supermarkets, local grocers, cafes, restaurants, some tradespeople and some online stores [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). The RBA has acknowledged that acceptance costs will persist after October 1 and can be reflected in overall pricing [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). ### Surcharging merchants must absorb or reprice A business owner faces two options: absorb the remaining cost, or fold it into slightly higher prices [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). The RBA has estimated that if all surcharge costs were built into sticker prices, it could add about 0.1% as a one-off impact on measured inflation [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). That figure is conditional, not a forecast, and it matters because card surcharges were never included in the Consumer Price Index [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). A price rise built into the sticker price would show up in inflation data where the surcharge never did. For consumers who already shop at non-surcharging businesses, nothing changes. For those who shop at the 16% that do, the total amount paid will be similar, just distributed through the sticker price rather than a separate surcharge line [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). Flexischools, a platform used by more than 2,100 schools for canteen orders, notified parents this week of changes coming from October [S¹](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com). The precise pricing adjustment has not been detailed in the available reporting. The ban takes effect on 1 October 2026 [P³](https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/faqs/?ref=notatechguy.com). --- *Sources: [S1 — Card surcharges are banned from October 1\. What’s changing at the chec](https://theconversation.com/card-surcharges-are-banned-from-october-1-whats-changing-at-the-checkout-290347?ref=notatechguy.com) · [P2 — Payments System Board Update: February 2024 Meeting | Media Releases |](https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2024/mr-24-03.html?ref=notatechguy.com) · [P3 — Frequently Asked Questions – Removal of payment surcharges from 1 Octo](https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/faqs/?ref=notatechguy.com) · [P4 — CAFE: A Compound-AI Factorial Evaluation Framework](https://arxiv.org/html/2607.10380v1?ref=notatechguy.com) · [P5 — Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging – Conclusions Pa](https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-10.html?ref=notatechguy.com) · [P6 — huggingface/open-r1](https://github.com/huggingface/open-r1/?ref=notatechguy.com)* --- *Written from 6 sourced items, 5 of them primary.* ## More from Not A Tech Guy - [Adobe-Cornell: clean-data prediction improves diffusion generation](https://www.notatechguy.com/adobe-cornell-clean-data-prediction-improves-diffusion-generation/) - [AI agent rare-event estimation 800× more efficient](https://www.notatechguy.com/ai-agent-rare-event-estimation-800-more-efficient/) - [Google DeepMind's Gemini 3.8 TTS clones a voice from 30 seconds](https://www.notatechguy.com/google-deepmind-s-gemini-3-8-tts-clones-a-voice-from-30-seconds/)