Cards accounted for 73% of consumer payments in the Reserve Bank's 2025 survey and were the most common method even below AUD 10. Mobile wallets had also become ordinary, not exotic. Your travel wallet can therefore stay light, provided it has a backup and knows how to read a surcharge.
Give every payment method one job
A surcharge must have a ceiling
Under the current Australian Consumer Law, a business can pass on the cost of accepting a card but cannot turn that line into extra profit. If there is no surcharge-free payment option, the minimum surcharge must already be included in the displayed price.
The rules are moving in October 2026
The Reserve Bank announced that Visa, Mastercard and eftpos networks may introduce no-surcharge rules from 1 October 2026. Until then, the current law remains in force. After that date, the exact result depends on each network's rules and merchant contract, so this guide points you back to the live ACCC page.
Read the terminal before the tap
Let your own issuer do the conversion
A terminal or ATM may offer to show and charge the amount in your home currency. That convenience is dynamic currency conversion. Continuing in AUD usually lets your own card issuer or network apply the exchange rate, which may be better. Your issuer can still add a foreign-transaction fee, so know your card before departure.
An ATM logo does not tell you the fee
Prefer a machine attached to an established bank, check the access fee on screen and make fewer deliberate withdrawals rather than many tiny ones. Reserve Bank research notes that independent ATMs have become more prominent as bank-owned networks contract; a bank ATM is still more likely to offer broader help and less likely to charge.