Enable surcharging on Lightspeed Payments terminals to offset processing fees by passing the cost on to your customers. When a customer presents their card, the terminal calculates and displays any applicable surcharge along with the purchase total. 

What's in this guide?

Regulations regarding surcharges
Setting up surcharges with Lightspeed Payments
Updating the payment terminal configuration
Frequently asked questions

Regulations regarding surcharges

If you choose to add credit card surcharges to your business, there are a number of rules and regulations that must be followed to ensure full transparency and compliance. These examples have been selected to highlight some of the common policies involved in surcharging and are not meant to serve as an exhaustive list. Regulations vary depending on your region. For a full list of regulations, contact your local regulators.

• You must disclose surcharges as a merchant fee, and clear signage must alert customers of the surcharge at the point of entry, the point of sale, and on every receipt.
• Third parties are not permitted to impose a surcharge. Surcharges must be applied by the merchant through their POS or card processor.
• The surcharge amount must not exceed the processing rate you are being charged by your payment processor.
• The cardholder must be allowed to cancel, without penalty, after the surcharge is disclosed.
• Surcharges can only be assessed on the final total amount charged for the goods or services, after any discount has been applied, and include tips.
• You may specify one surcharge rate for credit cards while having a different surcharge rate for debit cards.
• The surcharge amount must not exceed the processing rate you are being charged by your payment processor.

Most regions require clear disclosure of surcharging. We've made branded signage available for your convenience, but be sure to check with your local authorities to confirm it meets all compliance standards.

You are responsible for ensuring that you follow surcharging rules and regulations and are responsible for any non-compliance. It's recommended to seek independent counsel before enabling surcharging.

Setting up surcharges with Lightspeed Payments

To begin passing your processing fees onto customers, you need to enable the surcharging feature in Back Office.

Setting up a payment surcharge

Users with admin permission can modify surcharging. If you don’t have admin access, an admin user will need to grant you the manage Lightspeed payments permission before you can make any changes.

The rates you enter should reflect only the processing fees you incur, as outlined in your Lightspeed Payments contract. To ensure compliance, review the ACCC payment surcharge guidelines thoroughly. Be sure to also factor in GST when setting your surcharge rates.

To set up a payment surcharge:

1. Log in to Back Office with your Lightspeed credentials. 
2. From the navigation menu, select Integrations > Lightspeed Payments. 
3. Under the Settings tab, scroll down to Payments surcharge. 
4. Switch the toggle on to enable. 
   
5. Review the terms and conditions dialogue box. 
6. Click I understand and enable. 
   
7. Set percentages for each card option. 
   
8. (Optional) Choose whether to enable or disable Surcharge confirmation.
   • If surcharge confirmation is enabled: The terminal displays the total amount including the surcharge and prompts the customer to accept or decline it before payment. This applies to every transaction.
   • If surcharge confirmation is disabled: The terminal won’t indicate a surcharge is being applied. Instead, the surcharge will appear on the POS screen and the customer’s printed or emailed receipt.
9. Manually sync the POS or sync the register from Back Office.

Updating the payment terminal configuration

Whenever you make changes to your Lightspeed Payments account, such as enabling surcharging, you'll need to manually update the configuration of your payment terminal to ensure the changes take effect immediately.

Frequently asked questions

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