Does Shopify Payments charge more for Amex and international cards?

How much more do Amex and international cards cost?

Shopify's US pricing page prints three online card rows, and only the first is the rate most merchants quote. On Basic that first row — the standard domestic card rate — is 2.9% + 30¢. An Amex sale and a foreign-issued sale are billed on the two rows underneath it. Five other markets are in the table below.

The second row prices the premium tier. On Basic it is 3.5% + 30¢, and the page publishes the row for Grow and Advanced as well. Plus appears as most competitive rates on all three rows — a phrase, not a number.

The third row is about where a card was issued rather than what kind of card it is: on the US page it adds + 1%. Shopify's Help Center states the same charge independently — if your online store is based in the United States and you use Shopify Payments, you are charged a 1% cross-border fee on every sale made with a credit card issued in another country. All three rows sit in the same table that prices each plan, which our full Shopify Payments rate table shows beside the plan fees.

Is a premium card rate the same as an Amex card rate?

That upper row is not only about Amex — and its name changes with your country's page. The US page calls it premium card rates. The five country pages we read on August 22, 2026 — the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Ireland — all label the same row Amex card rates, and none of those five uses the word premium at all, so searching your own country page for it finds nothing.

The US label is the wider of the two, because Shopify defines the tier by card type rather than by card network:

So on a US store a Visa Business card is billed in the same tier as an American Express one — which the word Amex on a country page does not convey. The tier that applies to your own store is on the rate screen in your admin.

What Amex and international cards cost in five countries

Five markets with their own Shopify pricing page carried these Basic-plan online rates on August 22, 2026 — verified examples rather than a list of Shopify Payments markets, and a country missing here cannot be inferred from one that is. Each of them prices a standard domestic card lower: in the United Kingdom that rate is 2% + 25p GBP, and the standard figures for the rest are the subject of what Shopify Payments charges in your country. Australia is the exception among the five: its two upper rows carry different figures, while the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore and Ireland price them identically. Neither shape generalises — the market decides.

Basic-plan online rates, read from each country's own Shopify pricing page on August 22, 2026.

Only the Irish page marks its rates excl. VAT; the other four print no VAT note beside theirs.

How do you find the rate for your own store?

For a store that already exists, the authoritative figure is in the admin:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
2. In the Shopify Payments section, click Manage.
3. Click More actions, then Manage payment methods.
4. Click View payment rates.

Shopify documents that path for stores that are not part of a Shopify organization; a store inside an organization has its own path, set out on the same page.

Card rates are one line on a Shopify bill, and the rest of the invoice is a different set of charges. For a market you have not opened yet, that country's own pricing page prints all three rows; the five above are linked from the table.