Australia's card surcharge changes: what Pylon users need to know

From 1 October 2026, Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and American Express are introducing no-surcharge rules in Australia. Businesses accepting these cards will no longer be able to add a separate fee because a customer chooses to pay by card. The rules cover credit, debit and prepaid cards on the relevant networks. Read the ACCC’s guidance on card surcharges.

For solar retailers, this means reviewing how you handle processing costs when collecting deposits and final payments.

Payment Gateway lets you include processing costs in your quoted system price. You choose whether to incorporate some or all of those costs, or absorb them and leave your prices unchanged.

Processing fees aren’t disappearing

Removing card surcharges does not remove the fees businesses pay to accept card payments. The Reserve Bank of Australia explains that businesses can account for these costs in their overall pricing. Whether to adjust your prices remains your decision.

“Businesses can continue to recover the cost of accepting card payments by incorporating that cost into their overall pricing…”

— ACCC, Card surcharges

Any amount you incorporate needs to form part of your overall price. The ACCC warns that relabelling a card surcharge as another type of fee to avoid the rules may be misleading.

For example, a solar retailer might adjust a $10,000 system price to $10,256.41 to cover the 2.5% processing fee when the full amount is paid through Payment Gateway. If it sets the price at $10,500 to also cover higher equipment and installation labour costs, it must not tell customers that the entire $500 increase is due to the card surcharge changes. The explanation should reflect all the reasons for the increase.

Include processing costs in your system price

In your Payment Gateway account settings, you’ll find this checkbox:

Include payment processing costs in system price

When enabled, Pylon adjusts the quoted price of new designs to incorporate the processing costs you choose to recover. For those designs, no additional card surcharge is added at checkout.

The adjusted system price applies regardless of how the customer pays. Customers see that price in their proposal before choosing a payment method.

How the calculation works

For a $10,000 base price, including the full cost of Payment Gateway’s 2.5% processing fee gives:

A quoted price of $10,256.41 leaves your business with $10,000 after the 2.5% processing fee, assuming the full amount is paid through Payment Gateway.

Choose how much to include based on how your customers usually pay. If they typically pay only their deposit by card, you may want to incorporate a smaller amount into your pricing.

You don’t have to recover the full cost

You can absorb all processing costs and leave your prices unchanged, or incorporate only part of the cost.

For example, choosing to include 1.75% through the system price changes a $10,000 base price to $10,178.12. If the full amount is paid through Payment Gateway, the 2.5% processing fee is $254.45 and you receive $9,923.67. Your business absorbs the remaining 0.75% of the payment amount.

There is no additional card surcharge at checkout for designs created with this setting enabled, including when you choose to absorb the full fee.

What happens to existing quotes?

Enabling the checkbox does not automatically increase existing quoted prices. The pricing adjustment applies to newly created designs. Existing designs and signed proposals are not repriced when you change the setting, and duplicating a design retains that design’s pricing settings.

You still need to review outstanding payments. The RBA’s guidance explains that issuing an invoice before 1 October does not necessarily allow a surcharge on a card payment made on or after that date.

Check proposals and invoices with payments expected from 1 October 2026, including their payment terms and checkout behaviour. Turning on the checkbox for new designs does not, by itself, update those existing payment arrangements.

Get ready before 1 October

1. Decide how much to absorb. Review how customers pay and choose how much of the processing cost to include in future quotes.
2. Update your Payment Gateway settings. Select your preferred fee allocation, enable Include payment processing costs in system price, and click Save settings.
3. Review outstanding quotes and invoices. Check how payments due on or after 1 October will be handled.
4. Update customer-facing materials and payment systems. Review surcharge notices in your proposals, invoices and website, and confirm with your payment provider that checkout is ready for the new rules. This follows the ACCC’s preparation guidance.

Need help with your Payment Gateway settings or an existing proposal? Contact our team.