- Short answer
- Shopify Payments terms bar card surcharges where law does; Shopify pages checked show none built into online checkout; Visa/Mastercard add US rules.
- Online route
- Through an app; payment customizations list no operation that adds a fee
- US network caps
- Visa 3.00%, Mastercard 4% on credit cards; 30 days' notice to your acquirer, plus Mastercard for its cards
- Banned
- EU regulated-interchange cards; UK non-commercial cards when both providers are UK-based; Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut among five states read
- POS custom fee
- Fixed amount only, one per cart — no percentage
Do Shopify's terms allow a credit card surcharge?
Shopify Payments terms neither grant nor refuse a surcharge outright. They tie the ban to the law where you sell:
If prohibited by law, you will not impose any fee or surcharge on a customer that seeks to use an eligible Payment Method.
The UK version of the terms carries the same sentence. The same section requires a receipt with everything applicable law and Payment Network Rules demand, and the terms also require compliance with all applicable Payment Network Rules. These terms cover Shopify Payments, not third-party gateways.
On this site, “surcharge” also names a different thing: the fee Shopify charges you for a third-party gateway, which your customer never pays.
Does Shopify have a built-in credit card surcharge?
No Shopify page we checked describes a native setting that adds a fee by payment method at online checkout — as of October 2026, across the Shopify Payments terms, the checkout customization help page, the Payment Customization Function API and the POS custom fees help page. What exists instead:
- Apps in the Shopify App Store add card fees — for example Chargly in POS and CartFee in the online cart. Naming them is neither a recommendation nor a check against your law.
- A POS custom fee must be a fixed amount, not a percentage, and only one applies to each cart. Shopify's 2022 changelog entry names credit card fees among its examples; the help page does not.
- Payment customizations hide, rename and reorder payment methods, set payment terms and add a review requirement; the function's operation list has no step that adds a fee. In the US and Canada, stores below Shopify Plus can apply them only to non-credit-card methods.
A fee tied to shipping rather than to the payment method is a separate question: how to add a handling fee on Shopify.
Where the law bans or limits card surcharges
Law comes before card rules. We read the EU payments directive, the UK regulations and five US states — Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Colorado and Oklahoma — which is not a complete list of states:
Card surcharge rules we checked, by jurisdiction
| Where | Card surcharge | Limit or alternative |
|---|---|---|
| EU | Banned on cards with EU-regulated interchange (member-state deadline January 13, 2018) | Other charges no higher than your direct costs; member states may restrict more |
| UK | Banned on non-commercial cards when both your and the payer's payment providers are in the UK (regs. 6A, 6B) | Other payment means: no more than your cost (reg. 4) |
| Massachusetts | Banned on credit cards | Card issuers can't forbid a cash discount |
| Maine | Banned on credit and debit cards | A discount from the regular price is not a surcharge |
| Connecticut | Banned, per the state's consumer protection department | Cash discount allowed |
| Colorado | Up to 2% of the total or your merchant discount fee; never on debit | Shown as a separate line on the receipt |
| Oklahoma | Allowed on credit cards since November 1, 2025, with posted notice; old ban repealed | No more than 2% of the transaction or your actual processing cost, whichever is less |
Primary texts linked in the table (Colorado via the colorado.public.law statute mirror, matched to the signed act SB21-091), read October 12, 2026. Not a complete list of US states; not legal advice.
In Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut, the sources we read leave a discount open. Shopify's blog suggests a small discount for a cheaper payment method, and advises you to consult an attorney before setting a surcharge policy. Check your own state or country first.
What Visa and Mastercard require for US surcharges
Each network sets its own US rules for surcharging credit cards, per Visa's Core Rules (18 April 2026 edition) and Mastercard's US surcharge page:
US surcharge rules for credit cards, by network
| Rule | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum surcharge | 3.00%, and no more than your Visa Surcharge Cap | 4%, or your average effective merchant discount rate if lower |
| Advance notice | To your acquirer in writing, at least 30 calendar days before you announce or first charge it, whichever is earlier | To Mastercard and your acquirer, at least 30 days before you start |
| Cards excluded | Debit, even if the customer presses "credit" | Debit and prepaid |
| Disclosure | A statement that the surcharge is not greater than your Merchant Discount Rate | Clear disclosure at the point of interaction, including the amount of the surcharge and its dollar amount on the receipt |
Visa: Core Rules sections 5.5.1.5–5.5.1.9, US Region and US Territories. Both sources read October 12, 2026.
So set the fee per brand. In the US as of October 2026, a single 4% fee on every credit card would reach Mastercard's 4% ceiling and exceed Visa's 3.00% US maximum for credit cards, and both networks also hold it to what you pay to accept the card.
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