North Carolina Credit Card Surcharge Law
North Carolina credit card surcharge law allows surcharging statewide. There is no state statute banning, capping, or setting disclosure rules for credit card surcharges today. Card network caps set the ceiling, and clear disclosure at the door and the counter keeps a dealership inside the rules.
North Carolina Allows Credit Card Surcharging
No statute bans it, caps it, or sets disclosure rules for it. Not yet, anyway.
North Carolina has no state statute in force that bans, caps, or imposes disclosure requirements on credit card surcharges by private merchants. Chapter 75 of the General Statutes, the state's consumer protection chapter, has no surcharge section at all. A dealership charging a standard credit card surcharge is not working around a state law. There simply is not one on the books.
A ban attempt did surface once. House Bill 626, introduced in 2011, would have banned surcharging outright. It died in committee and never became law. Nothing has replaced it in the fifteen years since.
Some sites circulating today present a 2 percent cap as current North Carolina law, or claim it took effect in October 2025 or January 2026. Those are proposed effective dates pulled from a bill draft, not enactments. There is no 2 percent cap in force in North Carolina as of July 2026. See the House Bill 13 section below for the full story on where that number comes from.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed |
| Cap | Card network caps |
| State statute | None in force |
| Disclosure | Card network rules: post it and put it on the receipt |
North Carolina 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.
-
Visa: 3% Cap
In force nationwide since April 2023. North Carolina has no lower state ceiling.
-
Mastercard: 4% Cap
Same network standard as Visa applies, just a higher ceiling.
-
Debit Never Surcharges
Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in North Carolina or anywhere else.
-
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 North Carolina 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.
What HB13 Would Actually Change
It has not passed. It has not been signed. It is not law.
House Bill 13, titled Charges for Credit and Charge Cards, is a pending bill in the 2025 through 2026 session of the North Carolina General Assembly. Its current committee substitute would cap credit card surcharges at 2 percent, require disclosure at the point of entry and the point of sale, with equivalent notice for online and phone transactions, bar surcharging entirely at a business that only accepts credit cards, and carry civil penalties up to $500 per violation.
The bill cleared two committee reviews in 2025 and was re-referred to the House Rules committee on September 23, 2025. It has sat there since. It has not passed either chamber of the General Assembly, and it has not been signed into law. As of July 2026, HB13 changes nothing about how a North Carolina dealership surcharges today.
A number of aggregator sites get this wrong, presenting HB13's draft text as current law or listing an October 2025 or January 2026 effective date. Those dates come from the bill's own proposed language for when it would take effect if passed, not from anything that actually happened. If a source tells you North Carolina caps surcharges at 2 percent right now, that source is quoting a bill still stuck in committee.
If HB13 Ever Passes
Assuming the bill clears the House Rules committee, passes both chambers, and gets signed as drafted today, North Carolina would move to a 2 percent state cap, require the same disclosure trio most surcharging states already use, and bar surcharging at businesses with no other accepted payment method. None of that is in force.
What This Means at the Counter
The counter just needs three things right.
A standard 3% credit card surcharge sits inside Visa's cap and stays disclosed the same way every other surcharging state requires: notice at the point of entry, notice at the point of sale, and the surcharge itemized as its own line on the receipt. Debit never carries a surcharge, in North Carolina or anywhere else, no exceptions and no workarounds. We track the state, not your front desk.
One distinction worth flagging for a North Carolina finance office: G.S. 20-101.1 is the state's dealer administrative fee statute, the law that governs how a doc fee gets disclosed on a deal. It has nothing to do with credit card surcharges or payment methods, and it is easy to conflate the two when both live somewhere in a deal jacket. Keep them separate. One governs a documentation charge, the other governs a payment method charge, and they answer to different rules entirely.
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 North Carolina Rules
Yes. North Carolina has no state statute banning credit card surcharges. Chapter 75 of the General Statutes, the state's consumer protection chapter, contains no surcharge section, and a 2011 ban attempt, House Bill 626, died in committee and never became law.
Yes. With no state cap in force, Visa's 3 percent ceiling governs credit card surcharges in North Carolina. Mastercard allows up to 4 percent under its own rules.
No. That number comes from House Bill 13, a pending bill still sitting in the House Rules committee since September 23, 2025. It has not passed either chamber and has not been signed into law. Some sites list it as current law with an October 2025 or January 2026 effective date. Those are proposed dates from the bill draft, not enactments.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in North Carolina 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.
With no state statute in force, the disclosure 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.
Straight Answers on North Carolina
Know Where Your Dealership Stands
Book a demo: your North Carolina rules, your cap, and how the program handles disclosure at your counter, walked through on a real repair order. 100+ franchise dealerships nationwide · 20 years in payments · Houston, TX.
Book a Demo