payments
What You May Actually Charge for Taking a Card
Surcharging is governed by card network rules and by state law at once, and the two do not agree everywhere. The safe structures are narrow.
Card acceptance costs a percentage, that percentage is material on a large invoice, and the obvious response is to pass it on. Whether you may, and in what form, is decided by two separate systems of rules that apply at the same time.
Two rule systems, both binding
Card network rules. Your acceptance agreement with your processor incorporates the rules of the networks whose cards you take. Those rules address surcharging directly: whether it is permitted, what must be disclosed, where it must be disclosed, how it must appear on the receipt, and what the maximum is. They also commonly require advance notification to the network and to your acquirer before you begin.
Breaching them is a contractual matter rather than a legal one, and the consequence is between you and your processor, up to and including losing the ability to take cards.
State law. A number of states have statutes addressing surcharges, and they are not uniform. Some restrict or prohibit them, some require particular disclosure, some have had their restrictions limited by litigation. The law here has moved repeatedly and continues to, which is the single best reason not to rely on a summary written at an unknown date, including this one.
The two systems overlap. Compliance with the network rules does not answer the state law question, and compliance with state law does not answer the network rules question.
The distinction that does most of the work
The rules generally treat two things differently, and the difference is in how the price is presented.
A surcharge adds a fee to the card price. The posted price is the cash price and card users pay more.
A cash discount posts the card price as the price, and offers a reduction for paying another way. The posted price is the card price and cash users pay less.
Economically these can be identical. Legally and contractually they are often treated differently, and the discount structure is generally the less restricted of the two. That is why so much vendor material pushes it.
The catch is that calling something a discount does not make it one. The structure has to be real: the posted price, the quoted price and the invoice must all be the card price, with the reduction applied when another method is used. A business that advertises one price, adds a fee at the card terminal and calls it a discount has implemented a surcharge with a different label.
Debit is a separate question
Debit card interchange is regulated federally in a way credit is not. 15 U.S.C. 1693o-2, added by the Durbin amendment, directs the Federal Reserve to set standards for debit interchange fees and addresses network exclusivity and routing.
Practically that means debit acceptance often costs meaningfully less than credit, and the rules around what may be charged on debit transactions differ from credit. A flat surcharge applied to every card, regardless of type, is the version most likely to be wrong, because it treats a regulated category the same as an unregulated one.
If you do nothing else here, know what your own effective rate is for debit against credit. Many small merchants are on a blended plan and do not, which means they are averaging a cheap transaction type with an expensive one and treating the result as the cost of cards.
The practical structures
Take the cost. Price it into your rates and offer cards freely. Simplest, carries no compliance surface, and is what most small contractors should do for ordinary job sizes. The processing cost is a cost of sale like any other.
Offer a genuine discount for other methods. Lower compliance risk than surcharging, provided the structure is real and disclosed clearly. Works well where large invoices make the percentage material.
Steer to a cheaper rail for large payments. Bank transfer for a deposit of several thousand, cards for small balances. No surcharge, no discount, no compliance surface: just a payment page that presents the cheaper method first for large amounts and the convenient one for small.
Surcharge properly. Possible in many places and the one that requires actual work: check the current state position, notify as your network rules require, disclose at the point of entry and at the point of sale, cap at the permitted maximum and no more than your actual cost, and show it as a separate line on the receipt.
Whatever you do, disclose it before they choose
This is the part that produces complaints and chargebacks, and it is independent of which structure you pick.
A customer who learns about a fee after choosing how to pay feels misled, and a chargeback for an undisclosed fee is both winnable by them and expensive for you. The disclosure belongs where the choice is made: on the payment page, next to the method, before the button, in the amount they will actually be charged.
The CFPB's credit card material is written for consumers, which makes it a useful check on whether your presentation would look reasonable to the person on the other side of it.
And before implementing any of this, ask your processor in writing what your agreement permits, and check your own state's current position. Both answers change, and both are specific to you.