What was decided
On 31 March 2026 the Reserve Bank’s Payments System Board finished its review of card payment costs. The headline decision: from 1 October 2026, surcharging is removed on debit, prepaid and credit cards on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks. The RBA expects the networks to write “no surcharge” rules into their scheme rules, and has said that if surcharging continues anyway it could recommend legislation.
The same package lowers what the networks charge businesses to accept a card. Interchange on consumer credit cards drops from 0.8 per cent to a cap of 0.3 per cent; debit is capped at 8 cents; a first cap on foreign-issued cards arrives on 1 April 2027. One cap is deliberately left alone: commercial credit cards stay at 0.8 per cent, which the RBA says is needed to keep Visa and Mastercard competitive with three-party networks on business cards.
The RBA’s estimate of what disappears is $1.8 billion a year in surcharges, $1.6 billion of it currently paid by consumers, against around $910 million a year of lower wholesale costs for businesses.
What it means when a bill offers card
Most of the coverage so far is written for the business taking the card. If you are the business paying the bill, the change is simpler and lands on a smaller set of invoices: the ones that offer a card option at all.
On those, from 1 October, paying by card costs the same as paying by transfer. The card keeps what it always had — the interest-free days between the payment and your statement, a dispute process if something goes wrong, and points where the card earns them — and the surcharge that used to offset all three is gone. Where a supplier offers both, the arithmetic that used to favour the bank transfer now favours the card, or at least stops favouring anything.
On an invoice that offers only a BSB and account number, nothing changes. There was never a surcharge to remove.
Why some suppliers may stop offering card
The receiving business sees the same change from the other side: one that used to recover the cost of a card payment from the payer now has to absorb it. That cost is a percentage of the amount, so on a large invoice it is real money, and the RBA says as much — it expects the 16 per cent of businesses that currently surcharge to raise their advertised prices instead.
Expect three responses from suppliers who send invoices. Some will fold the cost into their prices and carry on. Some will keep the card option for small amounts and drop it above a threshold. And some will steer towards bank transfer with a discount, which the RBA has explicitly kept legal: a business may still offer a lower price for its preferred payment method. The bank-transfer-only invoice may become more common, not less.
Points, and the tax line under them
Because commercial-card interchange stays at 0.8 per cent, the pool that funds business card rewards is untouched by design. Consumer-card interchange falls to 0.3 per cent, and the RBA was blunt about why: businesses “should not have to subsidise benefits, such as rewards points”. If you earn points on a personal card, expect them to thin. If you earn them on a business card, the reform leaves that alone.
One line worth knowing before routing bills through a card for the points. The ATO’s guidance is that the points themselves are not taxed when you receive them. Rewards can be: its own worked example finds a sole trader’s vouchers from a business relationship assessable, and says rewards earned on business spending may be too. What its practice statement tells staff is when to take a case further — where the arrangement is contrived, where the rewards stand in for income, or where points from business spending pass 250,000 a year. Well under that, the same worked example ends in no action. Near it, ask your accountant before you plan around the points.
What to do before 1 October
As a payer, nothing needs setting up. It is worth knowing which of your regular bills offer a card option, because those are the ones where your choice changes. If a supplier adds a surcharge to an eftpos, Mastercard or Visa payment after 1 October, the ACCC says the networks and payment providers are the ones who enforce the new rules, so the complaint goes to them rather than to the regulator.
American Express sits outside the RBA’s decision — it is not regulated the same way, and three-party networks are on the list for the RBA’s next review, along with mobile wallets and buy-now-pay-later — but the ACCC records that Amex has also decided to remove surcharging from 1 October. The date is the same whichever card you hold.
If your business also takes card payments, the same date cuts the other way: the current surcharging rules apply until 30 September, and from 1 October the cost has to be inside your prices. The ACCC has published guidance for that side of it.
