How to absorb card fees into your prices before Australia's 1 October 2026 surcharge ban
A practical checklist for Australian small businesses to reprice, audit Square and third-party POS settings, and keep only allowed charges before the ban.
| By | Business Basics Desk — Newsroom |
|---|---|
| Filed | 15 September 2026 |
| Read | 3 MIN |
The receipt changes before the fee disappears
If you sell in Australia and use Square, the card payment platform, or a third-party point of sale, the surcharge line is going away, but the card fee is not. The Reserve Bank of Australia concluded that removing card surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa from 1 October 2026 serves the public interest. Square will automatically turn off the card surcharge setting on an Australian seller's account on 1 October 2026, so the seller does not need to manually disable Square's built-in card surcharge. Surcharging through a third-party point-of-sale integration with Square is controlled by the partner app, not by Square settings, so the business must address it before 1 October 2026.
The change does not make card payments free. After 1 October 2026, Square sellers will still pay card processing fees, but those fees can be absorbed into item prices rather than charged as a separate line item. The advertised price has to do more work. It has to cover the fee, the product, the labor, and the margin you planned to keep.
The deadline is the moment your register stops being allowed to show the old line. Where settings, fees, or a partner app still add it, you will create a problem at the till.
The checklist you can run in one sitting
Square cannot automatically remove a surcharge that a seller created using a service charge, sales tax, or automatic tipping, so the seller must remove it before processing a payment on 1 October 2026. Use the list before you process a card payment on 1 October 2026. Each item is testable in a minute.
- Open your Square account and confirm the card surcharge setting is off.
- Search your fees, taxes, and tips for any service charge, sales tax, or automatic tipping that was built to mimic a surcharge, and delete it.
- For a Square account that works through a third-party point of sale, ask the provider to confirm that surcharging through the partner app is off before 1 October 2026.
- Update menus, signage, and website to remove the old card surcharge line.
- Reprice your menu, products, or services so the card processing fee is absorbed into the price.
- Keep weekend and public holiday service charges, and keep booking fees or service fees that apply to every sale, after 1 October 2026.
The reprice changes the number the customer sees, the margin you keep, and the comparison a shopper makes. If the fee was previously a visible add-on, the new price may look higher even when the total is the same.
Work backwards from the price you want to keep. If a card payment costs you a percentage, the advertised price must cover that cost. Leave no gap that only shows up in your bank statement.
Run a test sale before the change goes live. Check the receipt, the online order, and the cash sale. Make sure the same item has the same customer-facing price, and that no extra card line appears. Where your point of sale shows a different total for card and cash, stop and fix the setting.
Keep the charges that are still allowed
Ask whether the charge would still appear on a cash sale. Yes means it may survive. No means it is a card fee in disguise. The charge must not follow the payment method.
Review the charge that follows the time, the booking, or the service, and do not let a card-based workaround hide inside a general fee name. Where your menu or website used to show a surcharge, replace it with a clean price. A short update is enough: prices now include card payment costs.
Do not wait for the first card transaction after the ban date. A register that still adds a card-based charge can create a refund, complaint, or compliance problem. Fix the setting before the first card sale.