Kentucky Credit Card Surcharge Law
Kentucky credit card surcharge law allows surcharging, with no state statute anywhere on the books for private merchants like a dealership. There is no Kentucky cap, no Kentucky disclosure statute, and nothing to cite by section number, because Kentucky has never passed one. Card network caps set the ceiling instead.
Kentucky Allows Credit Card Surcharging
No statute bans it, caps it, or sets disclosure rules for it. Not one on the books for private merchants.
Kentucky has no state statute in force that bans, caps, or imposes disclosure requirements on credit card surcharges by private merchants. A dealership charging a standard credit card surcharge is not working around any Kentucky law. There is no Kentucky statute to cite here, no section number, nothing on the books for a private business like a dealership.
Lawmakers came close once, back in 2013. A bill that would have capped surcharges passed the Kentucky House 100 to 0 and still never became law. See the House Bill 259 section below for the full story on what it would have done and why it died anyway.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed |
| State cap | None, card network caps apply |
| State disclosure law | None, network rules apply |
| Statute in force | None |
As of July 2026, Kentucky 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
With no state statute on the books, Visa and Mastercard's own rules do the work.
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Visa: 3% Cap
Visa caps credit card surcharges at 3 percent nationwide. Kentucky has no lower state ceiling.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
Mastercard caps credit card surcharges at 4 percent nationwide, its own standard alongside Visa's.
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Debit Never Surcharges
Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in Kentucky or anywhere else.
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Disclosure Is Mandatory
Post notice at the door and the counter, and show the surcharge as its own line on the receipt.
No State Cap Does Not Mean No Ceiling
A missing state statute is not an open field. Visa's 3 percent and Mastercard's 4 percent still apply to every Kentucky dealership, and they are the only numbers a dealership needs to run against today. A standard 3 percent credit card surcharge sits inside Visa's cap.
The Cap That Passed the House 100 to 0 and Still Is Not Law
A unanimous House vote is not the same thing as a statute.
House Bill 259 was introduced in the Kentucky General Assembly on February 6, 2013. It would have capped a credit card surcharge at the merchant's actual interchange cost, up to a maximum of 3 percent, and it would have required disclosure two ways: a posted notice where customers enter the business, plus an itemized surcharge line on the receipt. That is the entire shape of the bill: a cost-based cap with a hard ceiling, and disclosure at the door and on paper.
The House passed it 100 to 0 on February 28, 2013. Not a single vote against it. The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee reported it favorably on March 7, 2013, and it was sent to the Senate Rules Committee on March 11, 2013. That is where House Bill 259 stopped. No further action was ever taken on it. It never became law.
A companion bill in the same 2013 session took the opposite approach. House Bill 256 would have banned credit card surcharging outright, no cap, no exceptions. It was introduced February 6, 2013 and sent to the House Banking and Insurance Committee on February 7, 2013. It never moved again after that referral, and it never became law either.
Neither Bill Became Law
Neither bill became law, and Kentucky has enacted no surcharge statute since. As of July 2026, no credit card surcharge bill is pending before the Kentucky General Assembly; the 2026 Regular Session adjourned in April without changing anything. Surcharging in Kentucky today runs on card network rules alone, exactly as described in the Verdict section above.
What This Means at the Counter
The counter just needs three things right.
Customers pay the 3 percent surcharge on credit cards, and disclosure is handled at the door, at the point of sale, and as a receipt line item. Debit never carries a surcharge, in Kentucky or anywhere else, no exceptions and no workarounds. We track the state, not your front desk. Phone, text-to-pay, and online-link payments run through the program with the same required disclosure, and when a payment is refunded, the surcharge refunds automatically and proportionally.
Payments post straight to the repair order in CDK Drive, so the surcharge line shows up where your advisors already work. See the full mechanics on the surcharge program page, or walk through exactly what happens at the terminal on the how it works page.
Straight Answers on Kentucky Rules
Yes. Kentucky has no state statute that bans or caps credit card surcharges for private merchants. Card network rules govern instead.
No. A 2013 bill, House Bill 259, would have capped surcharges at actual interchange cost up to 3 percent. It passed the Kentucky House 100 to 0 and still never became law, stalling in the Senate Rules Committee. There is no Kentucky cap today.
With no Kentucky state cap, Visa's 3 percent ceiling governs a credit card surcharge, and Mastercard allows up to 4 percent under its own rules.
Kentucky has no state disclosure statute for private merchants. The standard comes from the card networks: post notice at the point of entry, post it again at the point of sale, and show the surcharge as its own line on the receipt. For pricing and program questions beyond state law, see the FAQ page.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in Kentucky 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.
Straight Answers on Kentucky
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