From 1 October, that six percent becomes yours
The surcharge ban has been written up everywhere for cafes. Almost nobody has written it up for venues selling tickets through a booking platform, where the exposure is a different size entirely.
What changes on 1 October 2026?
From 1 October 2026, businesses in Australia cannot add a surcharge for eftpos, Mastercard or Visa.
And renaming it does not help. The ACCC has been going after fees that appear late in a checkout for years, across travel and ticketing, and it has won. Calling it a booking fee and showing it on the third screen is the thing they already prosecute.
This is how we read the published rules as operators, not legal advice. Check your own position with your accountant.
Why does this hit venues harder than cafes?
Because the whole pitch was that your customer pays it. A cafe surcharging one and a half percent on a five dollar coffee loses seven cents a transaction. The percentage booking platforms are a different animal.
Six percent at FareHarbor. Six to eight at Peek Pro and Xola. Their entire sell was that it costs you nothing because the fee sits at checkout and the guest covers it.
From October the fee has nowhere to go. It does not disappear. It moves onto your side.
How do I work out what I am paying now?
Twelve months of online bookings, times whatever your platform takes. Write down the year figure, not the monthly one.
Most operators have never looked at it that way. On a booking it looks small. Over a year it is usually a staff member, or a room refit, or the whole marketing budget.
Forty thousand a month on a seven percent platform is $2,800 a month and $33,600 a year. A hundred thousand a month is $84,000.
If you are on a flat fee, do the sum anyway. You are probably paying under a thousand a year and it is worth knowing the gap.
What are my options?
There are three, and most people will pick one by default rather than deciding. Put your prices up, absorb it, or stop paying a percentage.
Put your prices up by the percentage. Legitimate, and some will. Two problems. Everything is already expensive for your customers, and the venue down the road might not do it.
Absorb it. Which is what most people will end up doing, mostly by not deciding.
Stop paying a percentage. Flat fee platforms have always existed. The reason people did not move was that the fee never felt like it came out of their pocket. From October it does.
We build one of those, so weigh that accordingly and check the maths yourself.
What should I do before 1 October?
Work out your real annual figure. Twelve months of online revenue times the percentage.
Open your own checkout on a phone and see whether a card or booking fee is showing.
Email your platform and ask, in writing, what they intend to do on 1 October. Keep the answer.
If you are going to move, start now. Changing booking systems in late September is how you lose a school holiday period.