Eftpos Australia is Australia’s domestic debit network used for making electronic funds transfers—such as debit card purchases—on Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale (EFTPOS) card reader systems. Because debit cards make up the majority of card payments in Australia, and because nearly all Australian debit cards can be routed through eftpos Australia, the way a business’s terminals and payment provider handle routing and pricing has a direct impact on operating costs.

Multiple variables—namely pricing model, routing configuration, and card mix—determine what businesses pay each month and explain why businesses with similar sales profiles can have very different payment acceptance costs. Below, we’ll cover how EFTPOS fees and charges in Australia work, what influences them, and how businesses can evaluate and improve their cost structure.

What’s in this article?

• What are EFTPOS fees and charges in Australia?
  
• How are EFTPOS transaction costs structured?
  
• What factors influence how EFTPOS fees are applied?
  
• What challenges do businesses face when monitoring EFTPOS costs?
  
• How can organizations optimize their EFTPOS costs?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What are EFTPOS fees and charges in Australia?

Eftpos Australia is Australia’s domestic debit card network. When a customer in the country taps or inserts a card linked to their everyday bank account, the payment can be routed through eftpos Australia’s system. Eftpos Australia was designed to reduce processing costs for domestic transactions with simple fee schedules and capped interchange rates.

Around 85% of Australian debit cards are dual-network debit cards (DNDCs). This means they can be processed either through the domestic eftpos Australia network or through an international payment network such as Visa or Mastercard. The network depends on how a business’s payment setup is configured, and that choice directly impacts the business’s fees. Eftpos Australia is often the lowest-cost option for card payments in Australia. On average, the fees a business is charged for EFTPOS transactions are about 0.3% of the transaction amount, where Visa and Mastercard debit is about 0.5%, and many credit cards are an average of 0.9% or more.

How are EFTPOS transaction costs structured?

EFTPOS transaction costs actually consist of a series of smaller charges. Some of these charges are visible on the statement you receive from your payments processor, but many are buried in the overall “merchant service fee” you pay per transaction.

Here’s what that structure typically looks like.

Layers of EFTPOS fees

An EFTPOS payment includes:

• Interchange fees: These are fees that your bank (i.e., the acquirer) pays the cardholder’s bank (i.e., the issuer) for each transaction. EFTPOS interchange is relatively low: often less than $0.04 Australian dollars (AUD) per transaction, with a regulated cap at $0.10 AUD or 0.2%. Small-value and charity transactions often incur zero interchange.

• Scheme fees: Charged to both issuers and acquirers, these fees are not directly regulated in Australia and, as a result, are sometimes harder to calculate. They can vary based on transaction network, business size, and other factors.

• An acquirer margin: This is what your payments provider charges for facilitating the payment. Some providers have flat rates per transaction; others pass on the raw cost and add a margin.

Some payments might also include EFTPOS terminal rental or service fees.

How fees show up on your bill

As stated previously, you don’t usually see EFTPOS fees itemized. Instead, you typically see a single merchant service fee.

Depending on your pricing plan, that could look like:

• A blended rate: Various fees (e.g., interchange, scheme) are combined into a singular fee for all debit cards, regardless of which network is used. This amount is easy to predict, but it might not reflect the lower cost of eftpos Australia specifically.

• A flat rate: Generally, a single rate across all credit and debit cards. Predictable, but you lose visibility and savings.

• An interchange-plus: You pay the actual interchange and scheme fees, plus a fixed margin. This is more complex, more transparent, and usually lower cost if you process a lot of low-fee transactions via eftpos Australia.

What factors influence how EFTPOS fees are applied?

Two businesses can process a $50 AUD debit sale and pay noticeably different EFTPOS fees. That’s because costs are shaped by a mix of customer behavior, provider pricing strategies, and regulatory rules.

Here are the factors affecting your fees.

Your transaction volume and negotiating power

Large retailers process millions of transactions, so acquirers compete harder for their business. These retailers can negotiate lower margins, lower per-transaction fees, and often bespoke pricing. Smaller businesses—especially those on basic bank plans—tend to pay “standard” rates with little flexibility.

Your payments mix

Your customers’ behavior also directly influences your cost profile.

The main variables are:

• Debit vs. credit: Debit—including eftpos Australia—generally has lower fees than credit. A business with heavy eftpos Australia usage will have materially lower payments costs.

• In-person vs. online: Online transactions carry higher interchange due to higher fraud risk.

• Card type: Standard cards are cheaper; premium and corporate cards carry higher interchange fees.

• Domestic vs. international cards: International cards almost always cost more.

Even small shifts in your payments mix can noticeably change your effective fee rate.

Your payments provider’s pricing model

How your payments provider structures its fees determines how much of eftpos Australia’s cost advantage actually reaches you. Two providers can charge vastly different margins on the same underlying eftpos Australia transaction.

Routing behavior for dual-network debit cards

Default routing for DNDCs historically favored Visa and Mastercard, meaning businesses unknowingly paid higher fees for debit transactions. Many acquirers still default to the more expensive path unless a business explicitly enables least-cost routing (LCR). Under LCR, a payment is automatically routed through the most affordable network available, which often ends up being eftpos Australia. Providers such as Stripe can automatically route transactions through the cheapest network by default, using LCR logic.

What challenges do businesses face when monitoring EFTPOS costs?

Many businesses know they’re paying to accept card payments, but don’t have a clear picture of exactly how much they pay and why.

Here are some challenges of monitoring EFTPOS transaction costs:

• Hard-to-read statements: Provider statements can be notoriously dense. Banks often itemize fees using internal codes or lump costs into broad categories, making it difficult to tell which charges relate to eftpos Australia versus other networks.

• Unpredictable pricing: Your fees can change month to month based on card mix, transaction size, or routing decisions. A shift toward credit usage or a switch in routing behavior can materially increase your effective rate.

• Limited transparency: Providers don’t publish comparable fee schedules, so businesses are often left guessing whether their fees are competitive.

• Surcharging compliance: If you surcharge, you’re legally required to back up the surcharge with your actual cost of acceptance since surcharges are not allowed to exceed that cost in Australia. Many businesses don’t have the reporting precision to do this confidently, which creates compliance risk.

How can organizations optimize their EFTPOS costs?

Lowering EFTPOS costs starts with knowing where your money is actually going. There are a handful of adjustments you can make that can materially reduce what you spend each month.

Consider these steps.

Audit your statements

Set aside time each month to review your provider statements. Look at the total EFTPOS fees paid and calculate your effective rate using this formula:

(Total EFTPOS Fees ÷ Total EFTPOS Transaction Value) × 100 = Effective Fee Rate

Watch for any unexpected shifts from month to month. If your provider doesn’t offer reporting that separates transactions by Visa and Mastercard debit, eftpos Australia debit, and credit, then push them for it. You can’t optimize what you can’t see.

Confirm that least-cost routing is enabled

Routing is everything for dual-network debit cards. With LCR, contactless debit taps usually flow through eftpos Australia. Without LCR, you could be paying Visa and Mastercard debit rates even when eftpos Australia is available. Businesses using LCR are estimated to have roughly 20% lower costs associated with accepting debit transactions, but not every provider has LCR on by default.

Re-evaluate your pricing model

Your pricing plan determines how much of eftpos Australia’s cost advantage you capture. If it’s been a while since you began offering EFTPOS payments, it could be time to reassess whether the payment network still fits your business. Custom pricing could be available if your volume is growing; providers typically don’t offer it unless asked. The best structure for your business can often be found by running the numbers on a month’s worth of transaction data.

Look beyond the rate

Low EFTPOS fees don’t matter if the surrounding costs erase the benefit. What are you spending on terminal rental fees? How are your monthly account charges and chargeback or refund fees? Are you happy with your support quality and settlement times? Ideally, the total cost and benefits should work for your business.

Stay attuned to regulatory changes

Interchange caps, routing mandates, and transparency reforms all have an effect on payment processing costs. When the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) adjusts a benchmark, your costs can change—sometimes immediately and sometimes only if you ask your provider to pass the benefit along to you.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimise your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.

• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.

• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalise interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.

• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorisation rates.

• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.