How Do Venues Price Racket Rental Now That Australia Has Banned Card Surcharges?
The Short Answer
You no longer add a card surcharge — you build the cost into the rental price. From 1 October 2026, Australia banned surcharging on eftpos, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, UnionPay and PayPal payments. That means a venue hiring out rackets can still set its rental price to cover the cost of accepting cards, but it can’t add a separate card fee at the checkout.
For sports venues, the practical upshot is simple: the price a player sees is the price they pay. And because the ban arrived alongside lower interchange fee caps and a sustained push on least-cost routing, the cost of accepting cards is being pushed down at the same time the surcharge disappears.
What Changed on 1 October 2026
The ban works by a roundabout route: the Reserve Bank removed its prohibition on “no-surcharge” rules, and each card network then chose to ban surcharging on its own rails.
| Before 1 Oct 2026 | From 1 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Venue could add a surcharge up to its cost of accepting that card | Surcharging banned on eftpos, Mastercard, Visa, Amex, UnionPay and PayPal |
| ACCC enforced a cap on “excessive” surcharges | Networks and payment providers enforce “no-surcharge” rules |
| Card cost passed to the player as a visible line item | Card cost absorbed into the price or paid by the merchant |
The ACCC is blunt about the workaround everyone is tempted to try: renaming a card surcharge a “processing fee” or “handling fee” may be misleading conduct. Genuine booking or service fees are still allowed, but a fee that exists only because someone paid by card is still a surcharge — just one wearing a disguise.
The Ban Doesn’t Remove the Cost — It Changes Where It Sits
Every card payment still carries a merchant service fee, an interchange fee, and network costs. The ban doesn’t make those costs disappear; it stops venues from showing them as a separate line and forces them into the headline price.
That’s a pricing decision, not a compliance problem. A venue has three honest options:
- Fold the cost into the rental price. A $10 racket rental absorbs its card-acceptance cost into one clean, rounded figure — the player pays a single price.
- Absorb the cost. Treat card acceptance as a cost of doing business and keep the price flat.
- Lower the cost itself. Enable least-cost routing so debit payments route over the cheaper network, shrinking the fee before it reaches the price.
The third option is the one most venues skip — and it’s the only one that makes the ban cheaper for the player.
Least-Cost Routing: The Quiet Lever That Lowers the Cost
Most Australian debit cards are dual-network: around 9 in 10 can be processed over either eftpos or an international debit network. Least-cost routing (LCR) lets the merchant route each payment over whichever network costs less to accept.
Take-up is already high and has climbed steadily:
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Debit cards that are dual-network | ~90% | RBA |
| Merchants with LCR enabled (in-person), June 2022 | 50% | RBA |
| Merchants with LCR enabled (in-person), Dec 2025 | 84% | RBA |
| Merchants with LCR enabled (in-person), June 2026 | 83% | RBA |
The RBA’s own finding: merchants that enable LCR tend to have a lower cost of accepting debit, and the savings are largest for small merchants and those on blended pricing plans — exactly the profile of a local sports venue. More than eight in ten in-person merchants are already enabled; the trend since 2022 is unambiguous.
Why the Ban Favours a No-Surcharge Rental Model
An unattended racket rental kiosk was already built for this world. The Dark Pro Shops model charges no fixed monthly fee, no minimum and no lock-in, with a small fee only per successful rental and standard card-processing rates — there’s no cash float, no till, and no surcharge line item to strip out.
That matters now for a specific reason: the ban moves the industry toward a single transparent price, and a kiosk that already shows one price — rent, pay, door opens — doesn’t have to re-plumb anything. The reconciliation record is unchanged too: every hire is logged to a locker cell and a payer, and refundable deposits are held and released through the payment gateway, so nothing in the money trail depends on a surcharge that no longer exists.
What Venues Should Check Before 2027
The surcharge ban is the first of several payment changes landing in quick succession:
- Now — remove surcharges. Check eftpos terminals, booking systems, invoicing software and online payment platforms; a surcharge buried in any of them is now a breach.
- Now — update the displayed price. The ACCC expects a single total price, not a discounted card price shown more prominently than the full price.
- Now — ask your acquirer about LCR. If you’re not enabled, ask why not; 83% of in-person merchants already are.
- 30 January 2027 — watch the flow-through. Large acquirers must begin publishing how lower interchange fees have flowed through to merchant service fees. That’s your cue to renegotiate.
- 1 April 2027 — foreign-issued cards. Interchange fee caps extend to foreign-issued card transactions acquired in Australia.
The pattern across all five is the same: the cost of taking a card payment in Australia is being pushed down, and the venue’s job is to make sure those savings reach the price the player pays.
The Bottom Line
The card surcharge ban is not a hit to rental revenue — it’s a forced cleanup. Surcharges let a venue dodge a pricing decision; the ban makes it face the decision honestly. Fold the cost into the price, enable least-cost routing to shrink it, and the player pays a single transparent price while the venue keeps more of the margin.
One price, no surcharge, no cash float — and a payment system whose cost is falling, not rising. That’s the environment a self-service rental kiosk was designed for.
Want to see how the rental economics read for your venue? Contact us and we’ll walk through it. Or see how it works and review the hardware.
Outside Australia and New Zealand? Our global sister brand KioskForce handles equipment hire worldwide.
Data sources: Reserve Bank of Australia, “Update on availability and enablement of least-cost routing for merchants” (June 2026 data — 83% of merchants with LCR enabled for in-person transactions; up from 50% in June 2022 and 84% in December 2025); RBA, Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging — Conclusions Paper (March 2026) and FAQs (removal of card surcharging from 1 October 2026; eftpos, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, UnionPay and PayPal all removing surcharging; around 90% of debit cards are dual-network; lower interchange fee caps; 30 January 2027 and 1 April 2027 milestones); Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, “Card surcharges” (businesses can no longer surcharge Visa, Mastercard, American Express or eftpos payments from 1 October 2026; renaming a surcharge may be misleading conduct; single total price requirement). Dark Pro Shops product documentation (no fixed monthly fee, no minimum, no lock-in; small fee only per successful rental; standard card-processing rates; refundable deposits held and released via the payment gateway).