Taking Card & Digital Payments

Guidance, not advice. General information, current as at late May 2026. Payment rules and provider pricing change — confirm before relying on this; talk to your accountant about GST.‍‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‍

Think about payments in two layers: the rails you offer (EFTPOS, mobile reader, payment links, bank transfer) and how you handle the cost of those rails. And there's a big change coming that reshapes the second layer.

The big change: surcharging ends 1 October 2026

The RBA finalised its Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging (Conclusions Paper, 31 March 2026): from 1 October 2026, surcharging on eftpos, Visa and Mastercard — debit, prepaid and credit — will be banned, with the card schemes able to enforce no-surcharge rules. To offset that, the RBA is lowering the interchange-fee caps Australian businesses pay (also from 1 October 2026), with a cap on foreign-card interchange and new fee-transparency rules following on 1 April 2027. The ban doesn't extend to American Express issued directly, or to BNPL. So you effectively plan for two regimes:

Now to 1 October 2026 — you may apply a cost-based surcharge on eftpos/Visa/Mastercard, provided it doesn't exceed your cost of acceptance for that card type (an "excessive" surcharge is banned under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the ACCC enforces it), it's disclosed before payment, and a single blended rate is set at the lowest cost of acceptance.
After 1 October 2026 — surcharging on those cards is off the table, so you build the cost into your prices or steer customers toward low-cost rails like bank transfer or PayID, without penalising card users.

Cost of acceptance

"Cost of acceptance" is what it actually costs you to accept a payment — the per-transaction merchant fee (often 1-2%, lower for domestic debit), scheme fees, any terminal rental, and chargeback fees. For small tradies a blended rate around 1.4-1.9% is common. Treat it as a business cost like fuel or insurance: you choose to absorb it, surcharge it (while you still can), or price it in.

The rails

Mobile card reader + app (e.g. Square, Stripe) — cheap hardware paired to a phone, usually no monthly fee, good for on-site tap/chip, tied into the app's invoicing and links.
EFTPOS terminal (a bank or Tyro) — suits higher in-person volume or a fixed premises; often a monthly rental plus a per-transaction rate.
Payment links / online invoices — email or SMS a link to pay by card or wallet; handy for deposits, progress claims and jobs you're not on site for; online fees run a little higher than in-person.
Bank transfer, PayID, BPAY — low-cost rails worth offering alongside, and increasingly the cheapest option once surcharging ends.

Square, Stripe and Tyro are three widely-used examples (described, not recommended): Square as a simple mobile reader plus invoicing for micro tradies; Stripe where there's more online or custom-workflow volume; Tyro for traditional EFTPOS tightly integrated with job software or enough volume to negotiate rates. Pick the setup that talks to your invoicing and accounting so each invoice is matched to its payment automatically.

How payments interact with GST

GST is calculated on the price of your job or materials, not on the card fee. A surcharge (while still allowed) is generally additional consideration for your supply and can attract GST if the supply is taxable; the provider's fee you pay is a business expense (with an input tax credit if GST is charged on it). The key habit: make sure your system records the sale amount (for GST), the fee as an expense, and any surcharge — not just the net amount that lands in your bank after fees (see GST for Tradies).

Common mistakes

Building a business model around surcharging that won't exist for most cards after 1 October 2026.
Surcharging above your cost of acceptance (banned) or not disclosing it before payment.
Only reconciling the net payout and missing the gross sale and fee for GST.
Ignoring the cheap rails (PayID, bank transfer) that get cheaper once the ban lands.

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