Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[transpactraveller]

I was at a restaurant today where they had a 10% weekend surcharge, but then a 5% discount if you paid by cash, or another 2% surcharge to pay by card.

So however you paid, the amount on the menu and the total on the bill was a different amount to what you actually had to pay.

If the government isn't going to ban surcharges they should at least legislate bill transparency for them, eg must display both totals on the bill - the total price by cash & total price by card.

 

[MELso]

I was at a restaurant today where they had a 10% weekend surcharge, but then a 5% discount if you paid by cash, or another 2% surcharge to pay by card.

So however you paid, the amount on the menu and the total on the bill was a different amount to what you actually had to pay.

If the government isn't going to ban surcharges they should at least legislate bill transparency for them, eg must display both totals on the bill - the total price by cash & total price by card.

The restaurant argued it was all too hard to comply so lobbied successfully to escape the rules around price transparency that apply everywhere else...