If you run a business that accepts card payments, two changes are coming at once, and together they change how you can price your products and services.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has confirmed it will remove surcharging on card payments. At the same time, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is actively pursuing businesses over misleading discount pricing, with Coles and JB Hi-Fi both before the courts.
On their own, either of these would be worth knowing about. Together, they mean many business owners will need to raise prices and rethink promotions at the same time, in a climate where regulators are watching pricing conduct closely.
Here’s what’s changing, and what to do about it.
The surcharge is disappearing, not the cost.
From 1 October 2026, businesses will no longer be able to add a surcharge at checkout on debit and credit card payments through eftpos, Mastercard and Visa.
That sounds like good news for customers, and in some ways it is. But the cost of accepting card payments doesn’t disappear. It simply moves from a line item at checkout into the price of your product or service itself.
The RBA’s view is that the old surcharging rules aren’t doing what they were designed to do. They were introduced more than two decades ago to nudge customers towards cheaper payment methods, such as cash. Today, cash use has fallen, flat merchant fee plans are common, and surcharges have become harder for customers to see or avoid. Right now, around 16 per cent of Australian businesses surcharge, and customers pay an estimated $1.6 billion a year in surcharges out of $1.8 billion charged overall.
Alongside the surcharge removal, the fees businesses pay to accept cards (interchange fees) are also being lowered, so businesses aren’t left simply absorbing a cost they can no longer recover. Small businesses are expected to benefit most from these changes, since they typically pay fees closer to the regulatory cap. Card networks and acquirers will also need to publish their fees, giving businesses a clearer way to compare providers.
A small number of businesses, including pharmacies and lottery agencies whose prices are set by regulation, sit outside these changes for now. Taxis, previously exempt from surcharge rules, will now be brought into the same framework as other merchants.
Key dates to note:
- 1 October 2026 – surcharging on debit and credit cards is expected to end
- 30 October 2026 – card networks and large acquirers publish their first quarterly fee data
- 1 April 2027 – a new interchange cap on foreign issued cards, and related transparency measures, begin.
At the same time, the ACCC is scrutinising discount pricing.
This is where it gets tricky. Just as businesses are working out how to build card costs into their prices, the ACCC is actively cracking down on misleading “was/now” and discount pricing under the Australian Consumer Law.
Two cases make the point.
In May 2026, the Federal Court found that Coles had misled customers on 13 of 14 sample products, after the retailer raised prices before running a “Down Down” promotion at or above the earlier price. The court found the products hadn’t genuinely been offered at the higher “was” price for a reasonable period beforehand. Penalties are still to be decided.
JB Hi-Fi is facing similar allegations in the Supreme Court of Victoria over online discounts advertised from prices that either never applied or only applied briefly. The retailer has already refunded more than $250,000 to around 200 customers, and the ACCC has signalled that Harvey Norman could be next.
The regulator has also flagged a broader sweep of Black Friday conduct, including countdown timers that overstate urgency, “site-wide” sales with hidden exclusions, fine print that undercuts a headline offer, and “up to X% off” claims where few products qualify.
The takeaway is simple. If you’re planning to raise prices to cover the card costs you can no longer surcharge, and you run sales or discounts on those same products soon after, you could find yourself in the ACCC’s sights.
What business owners should do now
The two changes are connected, so they’re worth tackling together rather than separately.
- Review your pricing now, before October. Work out how card acceptance costs will be reflected in your prices, and document the reasoning behind any increase at the time you make it.
- Be careful with timing. Think twice before running a “was/now” or discount promotion shortly after a price rise on the same products.
- Only use a genuine “was” price. It needs to reflect a price you charged for a reasonable period, not a price set up purely to make a later discount look bigger.
- Apply changes consistently. Have a clear, documented approach to repricing and make sure your team can explain it the same way to every customer.
- Watch the fee transparency data. From 30 October 2026, published fee data will let you benchmark what you’re paying against the market.
- Check your terms and promotional materials. Membership terms, price lists and marketing collateral should all be reviewed together, not in isolation.
None of this needs to be complicated, but it does need to be deliberate. Businesses that document their reasoning and apply changes consistently will be in a far stronger position than those who make quick, unrecorded adjustments.
Where to next
If you’d like to talk through what these changes mean for your business, whether that’s your pricing structure, promotional terms, or how to document your approach, our team is here to help.
