Debit Card Surcharge Rules

Credit cards may carry a disclosed surcharge, inside the card network caps and whatever the dealership's state allows. Debit and prepaid cards never can. That holds true whether the dealership sits in a state that permits credit surcharging or one that bans it outright; the debit rule does not move either way.

• Credit Only

  Only credit cards can be surcharged. Debit and prepaid never can.

• In Every State

  The debit rule holds in all 50 states, even the 47 that allow credit surcharging.

• Run as Credit, Still No

  Choosing credit for a debit card does not convert it. It stays a debit card.

• It Is a Network Rule

  The ban comes from Visa and Mastercard rules, set through the 2013 settlement.

The 2013 U.S. merchant class settlement is what let merchants start surcharging credit cards in the first place. That same settlement drew a hard line around debit and prepaid cards: credit could be surcharged, debit never could. Visa and Mastercard each carried that line into their own network rules, and it has held ever since. It is a card network rule, not a statute passed by any legislature.

Running a debit card through the terminal's credit button does not change any of this. Choosing credit at the prompt selects a signature transaction instead of a PIN transaction; it does not convert the card to a different type. The card stays a debit card from start to finish, and it stays off limits for a surcharge.

The Durbin Amendment is Section 1075 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The Federal Reserve implemented it as Regulation II, and what it actually does is cap debit interchange: the fee a bank charges a store for accepting a debit card. It says nothing about whether a store can add a surcharge.

Because Durbin held debit interchange down, debit costs a dealership far less to accept than credit does. There is not much of a fee to pass on in the first place, on top of the fact that passing it on is not allowed.

The Durbin Amendment does not ban debit surcharges. It never mentions surcharging at all; it regulates the interchange fee a bank charges a store. The reason you cannot surcharge a debit card is the Visa and Mastercard network rule covered above, not Durbin.

State law governs whether a dealership can surcharge a credit card. As of July 2026, 47 states allow it; Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts ban it outright. None of that reaches debit. Debit and prepaid cards are off limits in all 50 states, including the 47 that allow credit surcharging. A state that clears you to surcharge credit does not clear you to surcharge debit; that door stays shut everywhere. See the full breakdown on credit card surcharge laws by state.

The credit side of this has its own ceiling per brand, too. See what Visa and Mastercard each cap a credit card surcharge at.

DealerPayments is a payments program built specifically for franchise dealerships, run out of Houston. At the counter, a debit or prepaid card runs with no added fee, every time: our program never surcharges debit.

Credit cards work differently. A credit card carries the disclosed surcharge, inside the network caps and whatever your state allows, and that surcharge line posts straight to the repair order in CDK Drive the moment the payment runs. See the full mechanics on the surcharge program page, walk through what happens at the terminal on the how it works page, or check the numbers on pricing. Keeping it all inside the rules is our job, not the front desk's.