Paying by card on a road trip in Australia: card surcharges banned from 1 October 2026

The share of payments made in cash in Australia fell from 69% in 2007 to 13% in 2022, according to the RBA's consumer payment surveys — one of the fastest shifts to cashless payments among developed economies. The number of ATMs followed the same trend: the Australian Payments Network counted 25,168 in June 2022, its lowest level in sixteen years, a sign that banks themselves are pulling back alongside the shift.

For a visitor in a rental car, the practical upshot is fairly convenient: bank cards (contactless or not) are accepted almost everywhere in urban and peri-urban areas, from toll roads to national parks to petrol stations. It's in the most remote areas that the picture flips, as covered further down.

Until now, an Australian business could legally pass the cost of processing a card payment on to the customer, as a percentage added to the purchase amount — a common practice, notably among car rental companies and in hospitality. The RBA put an end to that in its conclusions paper published on 31 March 2026: from 1 October 2026, surcharges are banned on debit, credit and prepaid cards across the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks. American Express, JCB and UnionPay aren't legally covered by the ban, but have announced they'll follow suit from the same date.

To offset the lost revenue for merchants, the RBA is simultaneously lowering interchange fee caps (the fees a merchant's bank pays the card-issuing bank) from 1 October 2026, with a new specific cap for foreign-issued cards — i.e. travellers' cards — from 1 April 2027. The RBA estimates the overall saving for consumers and businesses at around A$1.8 billion a year.

Two payment categories stay outside the reform and can still carry a surcharge: PayPal, and buy-now-pay-later options such as Afterpay or Zip, whose fees (often 3–6%) are the subject of a separate RBA inquiry announced for later in 2026.

Car rental companies were among the businesses that most systematically applied a card surcharge, particularly on the pre-authorised security deposit held at pick-up. Avis Australia has publicly confirmed it will remove all card surcharges — on Visa, Mastercard, American Express credit cards and Visa/Mastercard debit cards — from October 2026. Other major brands (Hertz, Europcar, Sixt, Budget) haven't all announced as precise a timeline so far, but fall under the same legal ban on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks.

In practice, for a trip booked before that date, it's worth explicitly asking at the counter whether a surcharge applies to the card used for the deposit: the question can save a few tens of Australian dollars on a rental contract lasting several weeks. After 1 October 2026, the question shouldn't come up any more for a standard debit or credit card.

This reform changes nothing about a constraint specific to remote areas: along roads like the Great Central Road, in the Red Centre or on the way to Ningaloo and Karijini, some isolated roadhouses rely on a satellite internet link to run their card terminal. When that link drops — which happens regularly in these areas — paying by card simply becomes impossible, whatever network or reform is in place. A few very remote stations are in fact still listed as cash-only.

The takeaway is simple and doesn't depend on any regulatory date: always keep a reserve of Australian-dollar notes once the route leaves the main coastal corridors, especially in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and check the accepted payment method at each roadhouse marked on the map before heading out with a low tank.

The near-total move to cards isn't without debate inside Australia. Households that pay for more than 80% of their purchases in cash are statistically more likely to live in rural or remote areas, and some small-business groups have criticised the surcharge ban, fearing it will simply push up shelf prices to cover the real cost of card processing rather than make that cost disappear.

Economists have long debated whether a no-surcharge rule actually benefits consumers: a landmark study by economist Julian Wright, published in 2003 in the European Economic Review under the title "Optimal Card Payment Systems," shows that the welfare effect of a surcharge ban depends heavily on the level of merchant fees and the elasticity of demand — which is why the RBA is pairing its ban with a simultaneous cut to interchange caps rather than pulling a single lever (study searchable via Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Julian+Wright+Optimal+card+payment+systems+European+Economic+Review+2003).

Our "Australia on your own" guide breaks down the real cost of a road trip, item by item, including the expenses where a card surcharge used to be added without warning. Before you leave: get a card with no foreign-usage fees for everyday spending, and always keep a few notes in reserve once your route leaves the coastal corridors for the outback.