Understand Credit Card Surcharging

Learn how credit card surcharging works in Maxio Payments, including how fees are applied and displayed during checkout. Ensure your setup aligns with compliance obligations before enabling surcharging. To take a surcharged payment for a customer rather than having them pay it themselves, see Collect Payments on Behalf of a Customer with Surcharging.

What is credit card surcharging?

Credit card surcharging is the practice of a merchant adding an extra fee to a customer's transaction when they choose to pay with a credit card, intended to offset the processing costs charged by card networks and payment processors. These fees typically range from about 1% to 4% of the transaction amount and are regulated by a combination of state laws, card network rules (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), and disclosure requirements. Merchants that apply surcharges must notify customers in advance and clearly display the fee at the point of sale and on receipts. Surcharging applies only to credit cards, not debit or prepaid cards.

Maxio Payments includes purpose-built surcharge settings that let merchants configure rates by state and card brand, up to a maximum of 4% per card brand at both the country and state level.

How does it work?

When enabled, surcharging is automatically applied during checkout and payment updates across supported Maxio experiences, including:

• Public sign-up pages
• Invoice pages
• Self-service pages
• Billing Portal invoice page and update payment method page

The system determines whether a surcharge applies based on:

• The payment method (a credit card, or Apple Pay funded by a credit card)
• The buyer's U.S. billing address
• Your configured surcharge settings

If eligible:

• The surcharge is calculated as a percentage of the invoice's balance due
• The surcharge amount is displayed clearly to the buyer during checkout, along with the surcharge disclosure
• The fee is included in the total charged and passed through the payment processor for compliance tracking
• The surcharge fee is displayed on the paid invoice and receipt pages

Next steps

Ready to turn on surcharging? See Enable Credit Card Surcharging in Maxio Payments for setup instructions.

Related information

For answers to common surcharging questions, see Credit Card Surcharging FAQ.

For a full list of surcharging setup and reference materials, see Credit Card Surcharging Resources.