Kansas Credit Card Surcharge Law
Kansas credit card surcharge law allows surcharging, with one condition attached: clear and conspicuous disclosure of the amount before the customer pays. There is no percentage cap and no actual-cost cap written into Kansas law, so card network rules set the ceiling. As of July 2026, that disclosure-only standard has been in force for about a year and a half.
Kansas Allows Credit Card Surcharging
One condition governs it: tell the customer the amount before they pay.
Kansas allows credit card surcharges under state law, and the state's only requirement is disclosure. Nothing in the statute sets a percentage ceiling and nothing ties the surcharge to your actual cost of accepting the card. As of July 2026, that is the whole rule: disclose the amount, clearly, before the transaction, or you are out of compliance regardless of how small the surcharge is.
That is a newer answer than it looks. Kansas spent decades banning credit card surcharges outright before the law changed. See the History section below for how a federal lawsuit and a legislative rewrite got Kansas here.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed with a disclosure duty |
| Cap | None in state law; card network caps apply |
| State statute | K.S.A. 16a-2-403, rewritten by 2024 Senate Sub. for HB 2247 |
| Effective | January 1, 2025 |
| Disclosure | Clear and conspicuous, at point of entry or point of sale, in advance |
Kansas is one of 47 states where surcharging is legal. See the full table at credit card surcharge laws by state.
The Card Networks Set the Ceiling
Kansas law sets the disclosure duty. The networks set the number.
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Visa: 3% Cap
Visa caps credit card surcharges at 3 percent nationwide. Kansas sets no lower ceiling of its own.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
Mastercard allows up to 4 percent under its own network rules.
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Debit Never Surcharges
Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in Kansas or any other state.
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Disclosure Is Mandatory
Kansas law requires it directly. The networks require advance notice and a receipt line item on top of that.
No State Cap Does Not Mean No Ceiling
K.S.A. 16a-2-403 does not put a number on the surcharge itself, but that is not an open field. Visa's 3 percent and Mastercard's 4 percent still apply to every Kansas dealership, on top of the state's disclosure duty. The statute's own condition is about the notice, not the number: the surcharge amount has to be disclosed the way the statute describes below, regardless of the rate charged.
K.S.A. 16a-2-403, Rewritten for a Reason
A ban that stood for decades, undone by a federal court and a legislature that rewrote the statute.
The current version of K.S.A. 16a-2-403 reads:
“No person or retailer doing business in any sales, service or lease transaction with a customer may impose a surcharge on a customer who elects to use a credit card as payment unless such person or retailer discloses the amount of such a surcharge through a clear and conspicuous notice to the customer at the point of entry or the point of sale and in advance of such transaction.”
Read that closely and the whole rule is right there. A Kansas business can surcharge a credit card transaction, and the only condition attached is disclosure: the surcharge amount has to be shown through a notice that is clear and conspicuous, that notice has to appear at the point of entry or the point of sale, and it has to happen in advance of the transaction, not after the card is run. Nothing in that sentence sets a percentage. Nothing in it ties the surcharge to what the transaction actually cost you to process. The statute regulates how you tell the customer, not how much you can charge.
That single-condition rule is the product of a longer story, and the story explains why Kansas looks the way it does today. The old version of K.S.A. 16a-2-403, on the books since 1986, banned credit card surcharges outright and allowed only cash discounts, the mirror-image workaround merchants have used in ban states for decades. That ban held for close to forty years.
In February 2021, a federal court held that ban unconstitutional in CardX, LLC v. Schmidt, ruling that Kansas's surcharge ban violated the First Amendment. The Kansas Legislature then rewrote the statute rather than leave the law in limbo: the 2024 Senate Substitute for House Bill 2247 replaced the flat ban with the disclosure-only standard quoted above. The rewrite became effective January 1, 2025. As of July 2026, that is the law governing every Kansas dealership.
The Cap That Isn't There
A widely repeated number with nothing behind it anymore.
You may still read that Kansas law caps a credit card surcharge at your actual cost of acceptance, the same standard a handful of other states use. That description does not match the statute in force today. The current text of K.S.A. 16a-2-403, quoted in full above, contains no cap of any kind, actual-cost or otherwise. Disclosure is the only condition the statute sets. The only ceilings that apply to a Kansas dealership are the card networks' own: Visa's 3 percent, Mastercard's 4 percent.
The mismatch has a plain explanation. Kansas surcharge law changed recently, and it changed fast: a flat ban that had stood since 1986 was gone by early 2025, replaced by a disclosure-only rule with no direct precedent in the state's own history. A lot of what got published about Kansas, in guides and comparison tables and old advisory notes, was written against the old ban or against an assumption carried over from states that do use an actual-cost standard. That material predates the current statute. It was not wrong forever, it is just wrong now.
What Actually Applies
No percentage cap in Kansas law. No actual-cost cap in Kansas law. One disclosure duty, worded exactly as quoted above. Everything else that sets a ceiling on the number itself comes from Visa and Mastercard, not from Topeka.
What This Means at the Counter
The day-to-day picture: the rate, the disclosure touchpoints, and where it all posts.
A standard 3% credit card surcharge sits inside Visa's cap. Disclosure runs at the point of entry, at the point of sale, and as its own line item on the receipt. Debit never carries a surcharge, in Kansas or anywhere else, no exceptions and no workarounds. We track the state, not your front desk.
Payments post straight to the repair order in CDK Drive, so the surcharge line shows up where your advisors already work, whether it is service, parts, or F&I. See the full mechanics on the surcharge program page, or walk through exactly what happens at the terminal on the how it works page. For how Kansas compares to the other 46 surcharging states, see the full state-by-state table.
Straight Answers on Kansas Rules
Yes. K.S.A. 16a-2-403 allows credit card surcharges as long as the amount is disclosed through a clear and conspicuous notice at the point of entry or the point of sale, in advance of the transaction. That standard has been in force since January 1, 2025.
The amount of the surcharge, shown through a clear and conspicuous notice, at the point of entry or the point of sale, in advance of the transaction. That is the exact wording of K.S.A. 16a-2-403, and it is the only condition the statute sets.
No. That is an outdated description that does not match the current statute. Kansas law sets no cap of any kind, actual-cost or percentage. Visa's 3 percent and Mastercard's 4 percent are the only ceilings a Kansas dealership runs against today.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in Kansas or any other state. That is a card network rule, not a state one, and it follows the card itself regardless of how it runs at the terminal.
No. Kansas is one of 47 states where surcharging is legal today; only Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts ban it outright. See the full state-by-state table for how every state compares.
Straight Answers on Kansas
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