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, not in your favour, at least. Here's the cold, hard truth: card fees have been quietly rising for years for businesses across the US, UK and EU. US swipe fees hit a record $198.25 billion in 2025, up from $187.2 billion the year before, according to Nilson Report data cited by the Merchants Payments Coalition, and that number has climbed every single year since 2009.

If you run a small business, this is more than 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.

So let's actually unpack what's going on: why fees keep rising, what's actually in that percentage you're being charged, 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. Unlike the UK or EU, the US has no general cap on credit card interchange. The one real exception is debit: the Durbin Amendment caps debit interchange, but only for banks holding more than $10 billion in assets; smaller banks and credit unions are exempt entirely. That's why interchange varies so widely: a swiped debit card can cost as little as 27 cents on a $100 sale, while a commercial rewards credit card on the same sale can cost $2.60 or more. Our guide on credit card processing fees and rates breaks this down further if you want the full picture.
• Network fees: Charged by Visa and Mastercard themselves, separate from interchange, for authorization, clearing and settlement, fraud protection, tokenization, and a growing menu of "value-added services." These fees aren't capped by regulation at all, and they're increasingly showing up as their own line items rather than being folded quietly into the interchange rate. They're 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 is set by the banks and network fees are set by Visa and Mastercard. If you're comparing providers, our breakdown of which credit card processing is cheapest for small business explains exactly how this part of the pricing works.

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. Most small businesses land somewhere between 1.5% and 3.5% per transaction, plus a fixed fee of roughly 10 to 30 cents, with in-person sales sitting toward the lower end and online transactions toward the higher end. The average combined Visa and Mastercard credit interchange rate alone reached 2.36% in 2025, up from 2.02% back in 2010.

Why do card fees keep going up?

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 your processor is the only one to blame. Here's what's going on:

• Network fees keep climbing, even where debit interchange doesn't: Because network fees sit outside any interchange cap, Visa and Mastercard have had plenty of room to raise them, often through small, easy-to-miss additions like new authorization or data charges rather than one obvious hike. It's a big reason overall card costs keep climbing even for businesses that mostly take regulated debit cards.
• State laws are creating a genuine patchwork: With no single national cap the way the UK and EU have, individual states have started stepping in instead. Illinois' Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which bans interchange being charged on the tax and tip portions of a transaction, was largely upheld by a federal court in February 2026. More states are expected to follow, which means what you pay can genuinely depend on which state you operate in, not just which processor you use.
• 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 rises industry-wide, even if nothing about your business has changed.
• Almost all of this gets passed down the chain: The Merchants Payments Coalition estimates that rising swipe fees now cost the average American family more than $1,200 a year, through some combination of higher retail prices and fees passed directly to merchants. When the wholesale cost goes up, it reliably shows up somewhere, and often that's your statement.

It's worth pointing out that costs aren't destined to simply rise forever. In April 2026, a federal judge granted preliminary approval to a revised $38 billion settlement between Visa, Mastercard, and more than 12 million merchants, which would cut average credit interchange by 0.10 percentage points for five years, cap standard consumer card rates at 1.25% for eight years, and give merchants more freedom to surcharge or decline certain premium card categories altogether. It's still working through the courts, and any benefit will only reach businesses whose processors actually pass the savings on, but it's a genuinely significant shift after nearly two decades of steady increases.

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:

• Actually read your statement: 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. It's often the only way to actually spot a creeping increase before it's cost you hundreds of dollars, since these hikes rarely arrive as one obvious jump; they build up quietly, fee by fee.
• Know which part of your fee is actually negotiable: There's no point arguing over something nobody can change. Interchange is set by the banks, and network fees are set by Visa and Mastercard, so your provider has no say over either. 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.
• Check that your business is correctly classified: Your Merchant Category Code (MCC) affects your fees, and if your business is miscategorized, you could be paying more than you need to. It costs nothing to ask your processor to double-check it.
• 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. Processors would generally rather renegotiate than lose a growing customer.
• 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 recognize.
• 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 is built around exactly this: one flat rate across all card types, with no hidden authorization or PCI-compliance fees tacked on.

The bottom line

Card fees aren't going away, and network fees- especially the parts with no cap on them- are the ones most likely to keep climbing. But rising doesn't have to mean invisible. 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, push back on the parts they can, 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.