Can my online shop add a surcharge for paying by card? What the UK rules say, and what an overcharge costs you to repay

You take a card payment, the processor keeps a slice, and it is tempting to pass that slice on with a line at checkout: "card fee 3%". For a consumer sale in the UK, that line is usually not allowed. This guide sets out what the regulations say, what they leave open, and what we could not confirm.

It covers sales to consumers, meaning people buying outside their own business. If you sell to other businesses, the position differs and we have not covered it.

The two rules

The rules sit in the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012, as amended. Two matter to a small online shop.

Regulation 4: a cap at your cost. In the version we read, a trader "must not charge consumers, in respect of the use of a given means of payment, fees that exceed the cost borne by the trader for the use of that means". So where a surcharge is allowed at all, it cannot be a profit line.

Regulation 6A: a ban for most cards. This was added on 13 January 2018 by the Payment Services Regulations 2017. As summarised on the page we read, it says a payee "must not charge a payer any fee" for a card-based payment instrument that is not a commercial card, or for a non-card payment instrument of a kind covered, or for a euro payment under the SEPA rules. For other instruments the fee may not exceed the cost to the payee of that specific instrument.

Put plainly, for an ordinary customer paying with an ordinary debit or credit card, we read this as no surcharge at all, not even one equal to your cost. We did not confirm how the regulation treats every wallet or pay-later product, so check the exact instrument before you add a fee to it.

What is left open

• Commercial cards. The ban refers to cards that are "not a commercial card". We did not read the definition, so we cannot say which consumer cards fall outside it.
• Other payment methods. Where the ban does not reach, the cap at your cost in regulation 4 applies. We did not find a published figure for what counts as your cost.
• Excluded sales. Regulation 5 lists contracts where regulation 4 does not apply, such as gambling, health services and property rental. None is an ordinary online shop sale, and we did not check how those exclusions interact with regulation 6A.

Does your shop get an exemption?

Regulation 6 gave micro-businesses and new businesses a temporary exemption. The summary we read says it ran until 12 June 2014. Regulation 6A was added in 2018, after that date, and we saw nothing that exempts a small shop from it. We could not confirm that no other exemption applies, so do not assume one.

What an overcharge costs

Regulation 10 says a contract term requiring an unlawful fee is unenforceable to that extent, and the contract is treated as requiring the fee to be repaid. Here is our example, with assumed figures:

On those assumptions a year of surcharging is £3,240.00 that customers could be owed back. We did not read the enforcement regulations in full, so we cannot say who would bring a case or what else could follow.

What to do instead

1. Build the cost into the price. We found nothing in the regulations that stops you setting a price that already covers your processing fee. Our guide to drip pricing and postage covers the separate rule that the price shown must be the price paid.
2. Work out what a card order really costs you. Our fee calculator shows how fees look as a share of a £42 order with postage, so you can see what to build in.
3. Check your checkout and your terms. Look for any line, plug-in or terms wording that adds a payment fee for a consumer. If one exists, remove it and note the date.
4. Think about refunds. If a fee was charged in the past, regulation 10 treats it as repayable, so decide with advice how to repay it. Our guide on what to refund on a return covers returns, not this.

A discount for paying a particular way is a different thing. Regulation 66(3) of the Payment Services Regulations 2017 stops a payee's payment provider from preventing the payee offering discounts or steering customers to an instrument. We did not confirm that this makes any discount you choose to offer lawful, so treat it as something to check.

What we could not confirm

• The full text of the Schedule and the definition of a commercial card.
• How regulation 6A applies to each wallet and pay-later product.
• What counts as the cost borne by the shop, where a cap applies.
• What enforcement action follows a breach.
• The position for sales to businesses.

Overlyft can set up an AI workflow that checks your checkout page, order export and terms for any payment fee line, flags the orders where a fee was added, and drafts the refund list for you to check before anything is paid back.

This is general information, not legal advice.