Turn payment choice into your competitive advantage.
The surcharge ban is changing the way Australian businesses manage payment costs.
Pay Advantage gives you practical tools to influence how customers pay, helping you reduce payment costs without adding friction to the checkout experience.
Whether you're collecting a $50 invoice or a $50,000 deposit, you stay in control of your payment costs.
PayID from just 48¢
One flat fee on every payment, whatever the amount.
The same payment costs $23.01 by card
Australian businesses can no longer add a surcharge to credit card payments.
However, the surcharge ban does not mean Mastercard and Visa have stopped charging fees.
Credit card processing fees still exist. The difference is that businesses can no longer pass those fees directly on to customers as a surcharge. Instead, they need to absorb the cost into their overall pricing.
The surcharge ban doesn't mean you have to simply absorb higher payment costs. Pay Advantage gives you practical tools to optimise how customers pay, helping you reduce processing fees while delivering a simple, seamless payment experience.
Guide customers towards lower cost methods at checkout.
Pay 48¢ flat on PayID, whether the payment is $50 or $25,000.
Offer automatic discounts when customers pay your preferred way.
Route larger payments away from percentage based card fees.
The surcharge ban may remove your ability to recover card fees, but it doesn't remove your ability to influence how your customers choose to pay.
Make the option that saves you the obvious choice for your customer, and say why in your own message at checkout.
Pay by PayID and save $4 on this invoice
Get 1% off when you pay by bank transfer
Help us keep our prices low by paying with PayID
Card fees climb every time your customer spends more.
A PayID payment only costs 48¢ on both a $50 or a $2,000 invoice.
| Payment Amount | Card Fee | PayID | You Save |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50 | $1.17 | $0.48 | $0.69 |
| $500 | $8.73 | $0.48 | $8.25 |
| $2,000 | $33.93 | $0.48 | $33.45 |
| $5,000 | $84.33 | $0.48 | $83.85 |
Comparison based on a card processing fee of 33¢ + 1.68%.
The more your business grows, the more you save.
Give customers a reason to choose a cost-effective payment option by providing a discount.
A small incentive can create a big change in behaviour and lower your payment processing costs.
PayIDSave $4.00The saving shows before your customer picks.
Applied automatically — nothing for your customer to enter.
Card fees are a percentage, so the larger the payment the more they cost you.
Set the amount where your checkout stops offering cards, and bigger payments use PayID and PayTo offering a flat 48¢ instead.
| Payment | Card33¢ + 1.68% | PayID48¢ flat |  PayTo48¢ flat |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | Offered | Offered | Offered |
| $500 | Offered | Offered | Offered |
| $1,000 | Offered | Offered | Offered |
| $2,000 | Not offered | Offered | Offered |
| $5,000 | Not offered | Offered | Offered |
Above $1,000, your checkout stops offering cards. Larger payments are collected with PayID or PayTo at a flat 48¢ instead.
The surcharge ban is changing the way Australian businesses think about payments.
Pay Advantage gives you practical tools to optimise how customers pay, helping you reduce payment costs while delivering a simple, seamless payment experience.
Every business is different. We'll help you build a payment strategy that reduces costs while maintaining a simple, frictionless payment experience for your customers.
Talk to one of our payment specialists to discover how Pay Advantage can help your business reduce payment costs and prepare for the new payment landscape.
From 1 October 2026, Australian businesses can no longer add a surcharge to Visa, Mastercard, American Express or eftpos payments. These answers cover what the RBA reforms change and how to prepare.
The ban takes effect on 1 October 2026. The Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed the date in its final report on merchant card payment costs, published on 31 March 2026.
Payments made with Visa, Mastercard, American Express and eftpos cards, including credit, debit and prepaid cards. It applies however the card is used: in person, online or over the phone.
No. American Express sets its own scheme rules independently of Visa and Mastercard, but it has chosen to enforce the surcharge ban on its cards as well.
The card networks enforce the ban through their scheme rules, and those rules flow into the merchant agreement you hold with your bank or payment provider. Surcharging a card payment after that date would put you in breach of that agreement. On Pay Advantage you will not have to watch for it: we will switch card surcharging off for every merchant, so you stay compliant by default.
You have four levers. Reprice your products so the cost of accepting payment is built into your price rather than added at the end. Steer customers towards lower-cost methods such as PayID, direct debit and BPAY. Stop offering cards above a set amount, so your largest payments never attract a percentage fee. And offer a discount to customers who pay the cheaper way.
Join 6,000+ Australian merchants who’ve made the switch.