The surcharging framework introduced by the Reserve Bank of Australia is designed to ensure businesses have the right to surcharge to cover their cost of accepting payment cards while also ensuring that consumers are not excessively surcharged. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has the power to investigate complaints relating to excessive payment surcharges and can request a business to provide evidence of their cost of processing a payment to determine whether or not the business is excessively surcharging. If the ACCC deems that a business is excessively surcharging, the ACCC can issue an infringement notice or take court action against the business, and seek pecuniary penalties.

The RBA surcharging framework came into effect on 1 September 2016 for all large businesses^¤ and on 1 September 2017 for all other businesses.

A reasonable surcharge is a surcharge that represents your cost of acceptance for a particular card type. Tyro provides you with your cost of acceptance which includes your merchant service fees (MSF) and may include EFTPOS machine rental fee (if you choose to include it). There are also other costs you may choose to include that are eligible under the RBA standard, see here.

You are required by law to inform the cardholder that a surcharge will be applied and state the rate. You cannot state that the card scheme or any other financial institution levies the surcharge. Download and customise our surcharging signage template or create your own. Your signage must be visible to your customers and kept up to date if you change your surcharge rates.

If a surcharge was levied on the original transaction, the refund amount should include the surcharge amount apportioned.

Surcharging has a GST component. So you should consider any GST implications.