What Rising Card Fees Mean for Small Businesses

Pull up your last card processing statement, then find one from a year ago and put them side by side; odds are the numbers won't match, and this time, that's not automatically bad news. Canada's actually had a genuinely good news story on card fees recently, though it comes with an important asterisk. The federal government finalized agreements with Visa and Mastercard back in 2023, cutting interchange fees for qualifying small businesses by up to 27%, a deal that finally took effect on October 19, 2024.

If you run a small business, none of this is just background noise. Card fees are one of those costs that rarely get their own line in the budget; they just sit there in the background, nibbling away at your margin on every single sale. And because they're usually a percentage of the transaction rather than a flat number, they scale up right alongside your success. The busier you get, the more you pay, which is a strange kind of cost to have so little control over, even when part of it has genuinely gotten better.

So let's actually unpack what's going on: what changed, what's still rising, and what a small business can realistically do about it.

What's actually in a "card fee"?

When we talk about card fees for a small business, what does that actually mean in practice? Usually, this fee encapsulates three separate things, all lumped together as one number:

• Interchange fees: This goes to the bank that issued the customer's card, not to your payment processor. This is the part that actually improved. Small businesses with up to $300,000 in annual Visa sales, or up to $175,000 in annual Mastercard sales, now qualify for an average interchange rate of 0.95% on in-store transactions, plus a further reduction on ecommerce fees, a genuine cut of up to 27% from the old weighted average, expected to save eligible small businesses around $1 billion collectively over five years. If your business sits above those thresholds, though, you're still on standard rates, which typically run 1.4% to 2.8%, so it's worth checking exactly where you stand. Our guide on what credit card processing fees actually are breaks this down further if you want the full picture.
• Network fees: Charged by Visa and Mastercard themselves, separate from interchange, for things like authorization, fraud protection, and processing infrastructure. Unlike interchange, these haven't seen the same relief: Mastercard introduced new Transaction Processing Excellence fees for non-compliant transactions in January 2025, Interac added a Network Access Fee of $0.0058 per transaction in April 2025, and Mastercard's Wholesale Travel Program rate rose from 0.60% to 0.75% in July 2025. These fees are also rarely itemised clearly on a typical statement, making them one of the hardest costs to actually track down.
• Processor markup: This is the part your payment processor or POS provider adds on top for themselves. Out of the three, it's the only one you can actually negotiate, since interchange and network fees are both set above your processor's head. If you're comparing providers, our breakdown of the best card machine for small business explains exactly how this part of the pricing works. Most Canadian providers charge a flat 1.5% to 1.75% per transaction, with Epos Now's own devices sitting at a flat 1.5% on Visa and Mastercard.

So there you go! Add up all three, and you get your effective rate: the real, all-in percentage you're actually paying once every fee is added together and measured against your total card takings. Canadian in-person rates typically fall between 2.4% and 2.9%, plus 10 to 30 cents per transaction, with card-not-present transactions like online and phone orders usually running higher.

Why do card fees keep going up, even with the relief?

Ah, that's the million-dollar question, right there. To answer this, it's important to understand that a few different things are happening at once, so don't just assume the 2024 interchange deal fixed everything. Here's what's going on:

• Network fees keep climbing, even where interchange doesn't: Because network fees sit outside the small-business interchange agreement entirely, Visa and Mastercard have kept adding new categories and rate increases on that side, often quietly, through new fee names most merchants have never heard of.
• Not every business qualifies for the relief: The interchange cut only applies below the $300,000 Visa and $175,000 Mastercard annual sales thresholds, and you have to qualify separately with each network. Grow past those numbers, and you're back on standard rates.
• Card mix is shifting toward premium and rewards cards: More customers are paying with premium or rewards credit cards, and card networks charge more to process these, since part of that fee funds all the points, miles, and cashback. As more people switch to these cards, the average cost of accepting cards creeps up industry-wide, even if nothing about your business has changed.
• Cross-border and card-not-present transactions still cost more. Online sales, phone orders, and payments from cards issued outside Canada typically sit outside the domestic in-store rate entirely, and cost noticeably more to process as a result.
• Almost all of this gets passed down the chain. When card networks raise a fee, it rarely gets absorbed quietly by your processor, it shows up on your statement, whether it's a new network fee or simply a transaction that falls outside your qualifying rate.

The genuinely encouraging part of this story, though, is that Canada's relief wasn't just a one-off promise. CFIB, the group that pushed for the 2023 agreement, continues to monitor and advocate for further reductions, including guidance to help businesses confirm the savings have actually been passed on to them. So while several pressures are still pushing costs up elsewhere, it's not accurate to assume nothing ever gets better.

What can small businesses actually do about it

The good news is that you're not entirely at the mercy of rising fees, and there are things you can do to help take control. Here are a few of our tips:

• Confirm you're actually getting the small-business rate: If you qualify under the $300,000 Visa or $175,000 Mastercard thresholds, make sure your processor has actually applied it. Savings aren't always passed through automatically, and it's worth checking your statement rather than assuming.
• Actually read your statements: This seems simple and obvious, but the fact is, a huge number of businesses never compare their current processing statement to one from a year ago. Pull both out, and look specifically at your effective rate (total fees divided by total card volume), not just the headline percentage you were quoted when you signed up.
• Know which part of your fee is actually negotiable: Interchange is set by the networks (though now discounted for qualifying small businesses), and network fees are set by Visa and Mastercard directly. But the markup your provider adds on top for themselves? That's entirely down to them, and it's the one part actually worth having a conversation about.
• Ask for a rate review, especially if you've grown: If your transaction volume has increased since you first signed up, you have more leverage than you might think, and it's also worth checking whether growth has pushed you past the small-business qualifying thresholds.
• Watch out for hidden fees: PCI compliance charges, statement fees, batch fees, and various "reporting" charges can all quietly pad your bill without adding any real value. Some are legitimate, some are closer to padding. It's worth asking your provider to explain every line item you don't recognise.
• Consider whether your POS and payments are properly integrated: A lot of hidden cost and hidden friction comes from stitching together a till system and a separate card machine that don't talk to each other properly. A single, integrated system that handles POS and payments together tends to offer clearer, more transparent pricing, and removes a layer of manual error and reconciliation hassle at the same time. Epos Now Payments: The Complete Guide covers what to actually look for in an integrated setup.

The bottom line

Card fees aren't going away, and network fees- especially the part that sat outside the 2024 relief entirely- are the ones most likely to keep climbing. But rising doesn't have to mean invisible, and it doesn't mean nothing ever gets better either; Canada's small-business interchange deal is proof of that. The businesses that come out ahead aren't the ones who found some loophole; they're the ones who actually understand what they're paying, confirm they're getting the rates they're entitled to, and pick providers who don't bury the pricing in fine print, Epos Now Payments being a good example of what that kind of transparency actually looks like.

Your card fees are one of the few genuinely negotiable costs in your business, and it's worth treating them that way.