Card machine fees are made up of several layers: the interchange fee paid to your customer’s bank, the scheme fees charged by Visa and Mastercard, your payment provider’s own margin and the cost of the terminal itself. Only some of those layers are negotiable, which is why it pays to know which is which.
Cards now carry most of your takings. Card payments made up 64% of all UK payments in 2025, while cash fell to 3.9 billion payments, according to UK Finance. For most pubs, restaurants and shops, the card fee is now a cost on the majority of every pound that comes in.
December is when you put the most money through your terminals. That makes the next few weeks a good time to understand what you are paying, before the busiest month of the year adds to the bill.
Interchange is paid to the bank that issued your customer’s card. For UK consumer cards it is capped by law at 0.2% of the transaction for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards, as law firm Bird & Bird explains. You cannot negotiate it, but you should know it is there.
The cap does not cover every card. Business and corporate cards, and cards issued outside the UK, can carry higher interchange. That matters in December, when office Christmas parties are often paid on company cards.
Visa and Mastercard charge their own fees for running the card networks. These have been rising. In March 2025 the Payment Systems Regulator found that the two schemes raised core scheme and processing fees by more than 25% in real terms between 2017 and 2023, costing UK businesses at least £170 million extra a year.
This is what your payment provider charges for its own service, on top of interchange and scheme fees. It is the part that varies most between providers and the part you can negotiate.
You either rent your card machines monthly or buy them outright. Check how long the rental contract runs and what it costs to leave early.
These are easy to miss on a statement:
Two pubs on the same street can pay very different amounts. Common reasons include:
Add up every card-related charge on a month’s statement, including rental and the smaller fees, then divide by your total card takings for that month.
As an example, if a venue took £40,000 on cards in a month and paid £480 in total fees, its effective rate would be 1.2%. That single figure is the fairest way to compare one provider with another.
After a review of the card-acquiring market, the Payment Systems Regulator required the largest providers to give businesses a standard summary box setting out key prices, and to send reminder messages linked to contract end dates. It also limited terminal rental contracts to a maximum of 18 months, rolling monthly after that. If you have never seen a summary box, ask your provider for one.
Find the end date, the notice period and any exit fee. Many businesses are still paying for terminals on contracts they signed years ago.
Not always. A slightly higher rate can cost less overall if it saves time and mistakes. Things worth weighing alongside the rate:
At Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre, front-of-house staff use Dojo Pocket devices running ICRTouch PocketTouch, so the same handheld takes the order and the payment. When interval queues decide how many drinks you sell, that speed is worth more than a fraction of a percent on the rate.
Before your busiest period, and whenever your contract or terminal rental is close to ending. Reviewing in October or early November means any change is settled before December.
If you want more background, our posts on how UK customers want to pay in 2026 and reviewing your till, payment and support setup cover the wider picture. Getting the tills themselves ready is covered in our Christmas EPOS checklist.
You do not need to become a payments expert. You need one figure, your effective rate, and a clear view of your contract dates. With those in hand, you can decide whether to stay, renegotiate or move before the busiest month of the year.
Want help reading your statement? Send it to CCR Systems and we will talk you through it, including whether integrated Dojo or Stripe terminals would suit your venue. Call 0151 644 8296.
