Card payment sucharges banned in Australia from 2026

[AuSammy]

First our telcos banned foreign mobiles from working in Australia

I dibs - never happened

 

[oz_mark]

First our telcos banned foreign mobiles from working in Australia,

I've never known anyone coming from overseas having issues using their phones in Australia anytime recently

 

[dajop]

I've never known anyone coming from overseas having issues using their phones in Australia anytime recently

Yeh in the early 2000s used to be an issue coming from the US and vice versa!

I always use my Singapore phone in Australia and have done so for 15+ years without issue.

 

[AuSammy]

Yeh in the early 2000s used to be an issue coming from the US and vice versa!

I always use my Singapore phone in Australia and have done so for 15+ years without issue.

I think you will possibly find the issue was the US was still using very very old pre-sim card mobile network technology so outdated that Australia had already moved on to what the rest of the world was using and decommissioned the old equipment.

 

[I love to travel]

I wonder with QF will factor this in their financial reporting this week.

 

[Zero]

Sorry, what??? Do you mean that a visitor has to buy a new handset just to use a mobile in Australia?

If they have an older phone that the telcos have decided is unable to call 000, yes.

I have a UK phone purchased 2018 which still works in the UK and every other country where I have tried it, but it is blocked in Australia because the three telcos have decided that it is not 4G compatible, which is incorrect.

Telstra and optus had blocked it by the end of 2024, but it took Vodafone until early 2026 to decide to block it (and I was able to use it with vodafone until then).


I have encountered several online stores which didn't accept non-Australian cards, although this wasn't explicitly mentioned, they just got rejected without the transaction even being submitted to the card network.

but my understanding is that they can continue to surcharge for foreign cards.

Can anyone confirm and/or provide a source for this?

As an aside, the surcharge ban in the EU/EEA only applies to cards issued in the EU/EEA. Some European banks have started applying surcharges to cards issued outside the EEA, which can be over 4%. This seems to have hit a tipping point recently as I am suddenly seeing a lot of posts on forums and other social media about it.

 

[Be.au]

Obviously after October 1st the domestic one will disappear, but my understanding is that they can continue to surcharge for foreign cards.

Only if it's not an eftpos, Mastercard or Visa.

 

[dajop]

As an aside, the surcharge ban in the EU/EEA only applies to cards issued in the EU/EEA. Some European banks have started applying surcharges to cards issued outside the EEA, which can be over 4%. This seems to have hit a tipping point recently as I am suddenly seeing a lot of posts on forums and other social media about it.

Interesting that the blood sucking leaches are often dipping on both sides of the ledger, taking up to 7.5% of a transaction.

 

[Pete98765432]

As an aside, the surcharge ban in the EU/EEA only applies to cards issued in the EU/EEA. Some European banks have started applying surcharges to cards issued outside the EEA, which can be over 4%. This seems to have hit a tipping point recently as I am suddenly seeing a lot of posts on forums and other social media about it.

I discovered this when there was a 3% surcharge at a supermarket in Copenhagen.

 

[kpc]

Good summary of the credit card changes from Point Hacks:

Australia's rewards cards are changing: every major update to credit cards

Lower interchange fees set by the RBA mean that credit cards are changing the way they offer rewards. Here's a comprehensive list of changes.

www.pointhacks.com.au

 

[LondonAussie]

As an aside, the surcharge ban in the EU/EEA only applies to cards issued in the EU/EEA. Some European banks have started applying surcharges to cards issued outside the EEA, which can be over 4%. This seems to have hit a tipping point recently as I am suddenly seeing a lot of posts on forums and other social media about it.

There’s been a lot of talk about this in the UK - mostly around UK cards being charged higher fees at EU bank ATMs while EU cards get fee free or lower fee withdrawals.

The foreign card surcharges have just started creeping in this summer season in tourist areas mainly (it’s sometimes referred to as a tourist tax) but the ATM fees for foreign cards have now become widespread across the EU over the last few years.

Naturally why it’s making news in the UK is because it gets associated with Brexit.
Many Brits think the EU is doing these things to punish the UK for leaving the EU, almost to say Brits wouldn’t be charged these fees if they didn’t leave. (There’s similar stories about mobile roaming charges in the EU, and of course the non-EU passport lines at airports).

The reason these Brexit stories get legs is because the EU surcharge ban has been in place since 2018 and it’s only now they are starting to add these charges for foreign cards.

 

[Zero]

Naturally why it’s making news in the UK is because it gets associated with Brexit.
Many Brits think the EU is doing these things to punish the UK for leaving the EU, almost to say Brits wouldn’t be charged these fees if they didn’t leave. (There’s similar stories about mobile roaming charges in the EU, and of course the non-EU passport lines at airports).

The reason these Brexit stories get legs is because the EU surcharge ban has been in place since 2018 and it’s only now they are starting to add these charges for foreign cards.

Well UK-issued cards wouldn't be surcharged if the UK was still in the EEA.

Similarly since Brexit the UK's surcharge ban now only applies to UK-issued cards. Cards issued outside the UK can actually have merchant fees passed on, but UK payment service providers don't seem to have jumped on the bandwagon yet...

 

[markis10]

I've never known anyone coming from overseas having issues using their phones in Australia anytime recently

In the last few years Telcos have put a block on devices that cannot make emergency Triple Zero (000) calls over 4G VoLTE. It’s why AliExpress stopped mobile sales to Australia.