From 1 October 2026 an Australian restaurant can no longer charge a card surcharge, and Skai Solutions puts the cost a A$900,000 venue quietly absorbs at about A$12,600 a year using the Reserve Bank's own small business range.
That change is 19 days away as this page is written on 11 September 2026, and the rules are not the ones most operators assume. It is scheme rules rather than legislation, it does not touch your weekend or public holiday surcharge, and it does not apply in New Zealand at all. Here is what actually changes, what card acceptance really costs a venue your size, and the four things worth doing before the deadline.
The ACCC's card surcharges page, last modified 27 August 2026, sets it out plainly. From 1 October 2026 the Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos networks are introducing no surcharge rules for prepaid, debit and credit cards on their networks. The Reserve Bank of Australia announced the change on 31 March 2026.
For what the cards themselves cost, the restaurant merchant fees benchmark has the Reserve Bank rates for the June quarter 2026, including the overseas-issued card that costs more than three times a domestic one.
Two details matter for how you plan. First, this is not a law the ACCC enforces. The rules sit in each network's scheme rules and in your merchant contract, so the networks and your payment provider enforce them, not the regulator. Second, American Express is not regulated by the Reserve Bank the same way the others are, and chose to remove surcharging anyway from the same date.
Until 30 September 2026 nothing changes. The existing law still applies, which means a surcharge must not exceed what it costs you to process that payment type. After that, the surcharge line disappears from your terminal and the cost does not.
This is the number the whole decision turns on, and there is a published answer. The ACCC page sets out Reserve Bank of Australia 2023-24 data on what businesses are likely to be paying, split by size.
| Business size, by card turnover | Debit or eftpos | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Under A$1 million a year | 0.85% to 2% | 1% to 2% |
| A$1 million to A$100 million | 0.25% to 1% | 0.75% to 1.5% |
| Over A$100 million | 0.25% to 0.5% | 0.5% to 1% |
Almost every single-site restaurant and cafe in the country sits in the top row, and the top row is the expensive one. A worked example, and this is our arithmetic from the Reserve Bank ranges above, not a figure the Reserve Bank publishes: a venue taking A$900,000 a year on cards, at 1.4% which is the midpoint of the 0.85% to 2% small business range, pays about A$12,600 a year to accept cards. From 1 October that entire amount has to live inside your menu prices or inside your margin.
Two things follow. Run your own number rather than ours, because your statement will tell you the real figure and it is the only one that matters. And the gap between the small business band and the medium business band is roughly double, which is a straightforward argument for asking your provider what it would take to move.
Yes, and the ACCC says so directly: the changes apply only to card payment surcharges and do not apply to hospitality sector weekend or public holiday surcharges or other types of fees, for example booking fees. Those surcharges have their own consumer law rules about how they are displayed, which are set out on the public holiday surcharge page.
What you cannot do is relabel. The ACCC's wording is that businesses should not try to avoid the no surcharge rules by describing a card payment surcharge as another type of fee or charge, and that businesses that do this may be engaging in misleading conduct. A 1.4% fee that appears only when someone taps a card is a card surcharge whatever the receipt calls it.
Be honest about what is left after that. Card acceptance on a small venue is roughly a fifth of what delivery marketplace commission takes on the orders that go through it, and a small fraction of labour. It is worth fixing and it is not where the business is won.
The same Act governs the vouchers behind your counter. A shorter expiry than 3 years is void and reset by law, and a fee on an unused voucher is prohibited outright: see gift voucher expiry rules in Australia.
Fifteen minutes, your numbers, and the bookings that rang out during service.
Book a Free DemoOne cost the ban does not touch is a disputed transaction, where the sale reverses and a chargeback fee is debited as well. The published scheme windows and what a dispute really costs on a hospitality margin are on our page on eftpos chargeback rules.
Card payment removes one risk and leaves another. Our page on a customer leaving without paying covers what you can and cannot do when the bill goes unpaid.
No, and the two countries have gone in genuinely different directions. As at 11 September 2026 New Zealand has no in-force ban on card surcharges. What it has instead is regulation of the input cost. The Commerce Commission's interchange fee regulation states that interchange fees made up 60% of merchant service fees in 2024, and that its pricing standard decided on 17 July 2025 is estimated to save New Zealand businesses NZ$260 million a year in interchange compared with pre-regulation fees. The revised limits took effect on 1 December 2025 for domestically issued cards and 1 May 2026 for foreign issued cards.
So an Australian venue is losing the ability to pass the cost on, while a New Zealand venue has had the cost itself cut and can still pass on what remains, provided the surcharge is no more than what it is charged to accept that payment. If you trade in New Zealand, the practical job this month is the opposite of the Australian one: check that your surcharge has come down in step with your merchant service fee, because a surcharge set in 2024 is now very likely above cost.
Repricing a menu is a one-off gain of about 1.4%. A booking that never got taken is a loss of the whole ticket. On an A$85 average table for two, a single missed call is worth about 6,000 times the card fee on that same table, which is the sort of comparison that puts the surcharge change in proportion.
That is the honest frame for the next three weeks. Do the card work because it is real money and the deadline is fixed. Then look at no-shows and at the calls arriving while your staff are carrying plates, because that is the bigger number on the same profit and loss. An AI receptionist exists for exactly the second problem.
Card surcharging is a payments regime and a service charge is a pricing one, which is why the ACCC treats them separately. Restaurant service fee rules covers the pricing side in both Australia and New Zealand.
One practical consequence of the no-surcharge rules is that you cannot price your way out of a payments problem on the night. Our page on an EFTPOS machine not working covers what you can do instead, including the published limits on point of sale offline mode and why pending offline payments expire.
Do I have to change my terminal? The ACCC advises contacting your payment service provider to understand what changes are needed to terminals and systems, and to make sure card surcharging is disabled on terminals and other payment systems.
Can I raise prices and tell customers it is because of the ban? Only if that is the whole reason. The ACCC's worked example is a business that raises a price for energy and labour reasons as well, and it says telling consumers the increase is due to the surcharging changes would be misleading.
What about PayPal, BPAY and Diners Club? Those sit outside the current excessive surcharging ban, and the 1 October scheme rules named by the ACCC are Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos.
Who do I complain to after 1 October? The ACCC says the networks and payment service providers enforce the no surcharge rules, not the ACCC, which keeps its role over misleading pricing claims.
Rules and rates change and this is general information, not legal or financial advice. Check the current ACCC and Reserve Bank pages before you act on a number here.