The ACCC is cracking down on businesses which mislead customers over credit card surcharges, including charging them more than they should.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said businesses needed to review their card payment surcharges to ensure they were in line with their cost of accepting card payments.
Mr Keogh said misleading surcharging practices and other add-on costs was a compliance and enforcement priority for the ACCC in the 2025-26 financial year.
He said businesses also needed to ensure they adequately disclosed upfront any card payment surcharges.
“Businesses need to ensure their customers know about any card payment surcharges upfront, and that they are only charging what it costs them to accept those card payments.”
Mr Keogh said the Competition and Consumer Act prohibited businesses from charging a card payment surcharge was higher than the business’s “cost of acceptance”.
“For example, if a business’s ‘cost of acceptance’ for Visa credit card payments, including the merchant service fee and all other permissible costs, is 1 percent, and they choose to charge a card payment surcharge, they can only apply a surcharge of up to 1 percent to their customers that pay using a Visa credit card.”
He said the ACCC had commenced an education and compliance campaign to inform businesses, particularly small businesses, of their obligations and help them to comply with the relevant laws.
