How do I add a surcharge to credit card payments?
Due to a court approved settlement with MasterCard and Visa in 2013, U.S. merchants may now issue a surcharge for credit card payments to offset processing fees provided they follow the conditions set out in the settlement and the laws of their state. American Express and Discover now also have provisions for surcharging.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas currently have restrictions in place regarding credit card surcharges. Please seek legal advice before enabling surcharging.
The conditions for surcharging are:
You may surcharge at the brand level (Visa, MasterCard etc.) or product level (Visa Signature Preferred, World Elite MasterCard etc.). We enable surcharging at the brand level, at the same rate, on all brands that support surcharging.
You must disclose the surcharge to customers at the point of sale and on the receipt. We handle that.
You must notify Discover, MasterCard, Visa, and your acquirer (via Stripe) 30 days prior to the date you intend to start surcharging.
You may not surcharge more than your credit card cost of acceptance or 4% of the payment total, whichever is lower.
By enabling surcharging you are aware that:
You cannot fully recover the processing fee because adding a surcharge will actually increase the total fee paid.
The credit cards accepted may be limited to the ones that allow surcharging.
Debit and pre-paid cards cannot be surcharged.
To enable automatic credit card surcharging visit the My Account page, check the 'Add a surcharge to the payment' checkbox, and enter your cost of acceptance.
A more widely accepted and flexible option is to include the credit card fee in your invoices.
More information:
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharge-considerations-and-requirements.pdf
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharging-faq-by-merchants.pdf
https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/merchants/get-support/merchant-surcharge-rules.html
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