A restaurant in Australia can charge a service fee, but only a weekend or public holiday surcharge escapes the single price rule, and the ACCC requires that notice to be at least as prominent as the most prominent price on the menu. An infringement notice for getting it wrong is A$21,840 for a company.
Skai Solutions read the ACCC and Commerce Commission guidance rather than the industry summaries of it, because the exemption almost every venue relies on is defined by the day of the week and nothing else. New Zealand has no exemption at all, and adds a test Australia does not: the reason you give for the surcharge has to be true. Card surcharging is a separate regime again, and it changes on 1 October 2026.
Yes. The question that actually decides anything is not whether you may charge it, but whether it can sit outside the price on the menu.
The starting rule in the ACCC guidance on price displays is the single price rule: where a total price can be worked out, a business must show it as one figure, and that figure has to include every unavoidable component. A fee that every customer must pay is part of the price, not an addition to it.
Hospitality has one published exemption and it is narrower than the way it gets used. The ACCC's carve out is for a weekend or public holiday surcharge. A venue relying on it must display these words on the menu: A surcharge of [percentage] applies on [day or days], and the ACCC requires that statement to be at least as prominent as the most prominent price on the menu. If the menu shows no prices, the information has to be displayed prominently some other way.
Note what the exemption is defined by. It is defined by a day. It is not defined by the label on the fee, the reason for it, or who it is charged to.
Follow the definition through and the common cases sort themselves out.
| Charge | Where it sits in Australia |
|---|---|
| 15% on public holidays, signed on the menu | The published exemption. Outside the single price if the prescribed wording is as prominent as the largest price. |
| 10% on Saturdays and Sundays, signed on the menu | Same exemption, same prominence test. |
| A service charge applied every day of the week | Unavoidable and not day based. It is part of the minimum total price and belongs in the menu figure. |
| A booking fee | The ACCC names booking fees as a different type of fee from the hospitality surcharge. Treat it as part of the price. |
| A surcharge on groups of eight or more | Unavoidable for that party. The exemption is about days, not party sizes, so the group needs to see the total before ordering. |
| A card payment surcharge | A separate payments regime entirely. |
Built from the ACCC guidance on price displays, read 7 September 2026, and the WA Consumer Protection guidance on restaurant surcharges, last updated 1 September 2026. Where the rows go beyond the published wording they are a reading of it, not a quote, and the safe course on any fee you are unsure about is to put it in the displayed price.
The card question is worth separating properly because the dates are moving. From 1 October 2026 the Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos networks introduce no surcharge rules for prepaid, debit and credit cards, and current card surcharging law applies until 30 September 2026. The ACCC has said explicitly that those changes do not apply to hospitality weekend or public holiday surcharges or other types of fees such as booking fees. The card surcharge ban page covers that regime on its own.
Worth reading once in the original, because the guidance summaries lose the two phrases that decide most arguments. Section 48(1) of the Australian Consumer Law says a person must not, in trade or commerce, make a representation about an amount that would form part of the consideration for goods or services "unless the person also specifies, in a prominent way and as a single figure, the single price for the goods or services". The text is in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, Part 3-1, Division 4, compilation registered 16 September 2026.
Two phrases do the work. "In a prominent way" is why a surcharge line in six point type under the menu fails even when it is technically disclosed. "As a single figure" is why listing the components and inviting the customer to add them up is not compliance: one number has to appear. Neither phrase mentions signage, which is the useful part. The obligation attaches to the representation of the price, so it lands on your menu, your website, your ordering page and whatever your phone tells a caller, not just on a sign at the door.
The ceiling on this is also higher than the infringement notice figures below, and that gap is worth understanding. An infringement notice is what a regulator issues without going to court. Section 224 of the same Schedule sets the penalty a court may impose for contravening a Part 3-1 provision, and for a body corporate it is the greatest of A$100,000,000, three times the benefit obtained, or 30% of adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period. For a person who is not a body corporate it is A$2,500,000. Those are ceilings for deliberate or systemic conduct rather than the likely outcome for one venue with a small sign, but the A$21,840 figure below is the out-of-court option, not the maximum.
A voucher is the other place a total price gets argued about. The rules on those, including the three year minimum and the ban on fees, are on gift voucher expiry rules in Australia.
This is where venues that are otherwise compliant come unstuck, because they treat the notice as fine print. The ACCC's test is comparative, not absolute: the surcharge statement must be at least as prominent as the most prominent price on the menu. If your menu has a headline price set large, the surcharge line has to hold its own against that.
WA Consumer Protection states the practical version. No separate menu is required, but the statement must be transparent and prominent, and a consumer must be able to immediately tell that the price shown on the menu is not the final price they will be charged on those days.
Two failures follow from that wording and both are common. A surcharge disclosed only on the bill is disclosed after the decision, which is too late. A surcharge disclosed only at the door while the menu carries none of it fails the comparison with the most prominent price. The full detail for the day based case is on public holiday surcharge rules.
Fifteen minutes, your menu, your hardest order.
Book a Free DemoYes, and the framework is the opposite shape to Australia's. There is no exemption to rely on and no prescribed wording to copy, but there is an extra test Australia does not impose.
The Commerce Commission statement on surcharges puts it this way. A business may set its own prices and charge a surcharge, but it must be clearly disclosed before the customer decides to purchase, and the reason for any surcharge must be accurately described and must not be capable of misleading consumers. Where the stated reason is the extra wage cost of a public holiday, the surcharge should not exceed those costs, and the costs should actually be incurred by the business.
That last sentence is the one with teeth, and it is the cross Tasman difference nobody writes down. In Australia the exemption is procedural: put the right words on the menu in the right size and a 15% surcharge is compliant whatever it actually covers. In New Zealand the reason you give is itself a representation, and it has to be true. A venue that signs a surcharge as covering public holiday wages and charges it on a Mondayised day when nobody was paid a public holiday rate has made a false statement about its own costs. The Commission's own wording is that this is likely to be misleading and a breach of the Fair Trading Act.
New Zealand also has no hospitality award and no statutory weekend penalty rates, so a weekend surcharge in New Zealand has a thinner cost story behind it than the same surcharge in Australia. Hospitality wages in New Zealand sets out what actually changes on a Saturday there, which is less than most operators assume.
The realistic outcome for a small venue is a complaint, a request to change the signage and the end of it. The published ceilings are a long way above that, and they are worth knowing because they are what a repeat or deliberate case attracts.
Australian figures from the ACCC fines and penalties page, page modified 13 July 2026. New Zealand figures from the Commerce Commission. Conduct before 28 March 2026 uses the maximums that applied at the time, so a current maximum is not a claim about a past case.
A surcharge that is disclosed properly on the menu can still be undisclosed on the phone, and the phone is where bookings are made. A caller who books a table for ten on a Sunday has made a purchasing decision before they ever see a menu, and in New Zealand the disclosure obligation attaches to that decision rather than to the printed card. Whoever answers that call needs to say the number out loud.
The practical fix is a line in the booking script, which how to answer the restaurant phone covers, and a consistent one at that, since a casual on their second shift is often the person holding the handset. If you take deposits or charge for cancellations as well, the rules are different again and are on restaurant no show fee rules. Skai Solutions sells an AI phone agent that says the same sentence every time, which is an interested party's answer to a compliance problem, so check it against your own view. None of this is legal advice, and a fee structure worth real money to your venue is worth a lawyer's half hour.
If the script keeps slipping because the person holding the handset changes every shift, the alternative is a line that reads the same disclosure every time. That is what an AI receptionist for a restaurant is for, and it is worth nothing if your surcharge policy is not settled first.
Charging on the day is a separate question from whether the day is one you can trade. See which public holidays restrict trading for the Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Anzac Day rules.
Corkage is a price you set, not a licensing matter, and it is displayed the same way as any other charge. Whether you may allow BYO at all depends on your state, and the three biggest states answer it differently. The fees and the lead times are in do you need a BYO licence in Australia.
The single price rule and the refund guarantees sit in the same statute and carry the same Part 3-1 penalty scale. Restaurant refund rules in Australia works through what happens when a diner asks for their money back.
A service charge and a tip are different instruments and the rules differ completely. A service charge is regulated by consumer law, as above. Tips are not mentioned anywhere in either hospitality award: see how tip pooling works in Australia, including what has to go in the policy you write yourself.
Yes, but where it sits changes. Australian Consumer Law normally requires the minimum total price to be shown as one figure including unavoidable fees. The ACCC publishes one carve out for hospitality and it is specifically a weekend or public holiday surcharge, which may sit outside the single price provided the menu carries the words A surcharge of [percentage] applies on [day or days], at least as prominently as the most prominent price. A fee charged every day is not that carve out, so it belongs inside the displayed price.
Charging it is not prohibited. Hiding it is. A group surcharge is unavoidable for the group it applies to, so the safe position is that the party must be able to see the total they will pay before they order, not discover it on the bill. The ACCC's published exemption is about days of the week, and it does not say anything about group sizes, so a venue relying on it for a group fee is relying on something the guidance does not say.
Commercially it covers the cost of service that the menu price does not, most often weekend or public holiday wages. Legally the label matters in New Zealand more than in Australia. The Commerce Commission says the reason for a surcharge must be accurately described and must not mislead, and that where the stated reason is extra wage cost, the surcharge should not exceed those costs and the costs should actually be incurred.
In Australia, if the fee is unavoidable it has to be inside the single displayed price unless it is the weekend or public holiday surcharge, which has its own prescribed wording and a prominence test. WA Consumer Protection puts the test in plain terms: a customer must be able to immediately tell that the price on the menu is not the final price on those days. In New Zealand there is no prescribed wording, but it must be clearly disclosed before the customer decides to buy.
No, and they are governed differently. Card surcharging is a payments regime, and from 1 October 2026 the Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos networks introduce no surcharge rules for prepaid, debit and credit cards. The ACCC states those changes do not apply to hospitality sector weekend or public holiday surcharges or other types of fees, for example booking fees. A service charge is a price question, not a payments question.
Yes, with no exemption to rely on and one extra requirement. A business may set its own prices, but the surcharge must be clearly disclosed before the customer decides to purchase, and the Commerce Commission says the reason for it must be accurately described and must not mislead. The Mondayised public holiday trap follows from that: charging a public holiday surcharge on a day the business does not actually incur the extra cost is likely to breach the Fair Trading Act.
In Australia the ACCC can issue infringement notices of A$21,840 for a corporation, A$218,400 for a listed corporation and A$4,368 for an individual, with a penalty unit of A$364 from 1 July 2026. In New Zealand the Fair Trading Act maximum is NZ$200,000 for an individual and NZ$600,000 for a business, per offence. The realistic risk for a small venue is a complaint and a correction rather than a maximum penalty, but the numbers are the ceiling.