Oregon Credit Card Surcharge Law
Oregon credit card surcharge law allows surcharging. No state statute bans it or caps it, so the card networks set the ceiling instead. The rule worth actually knowing has nothing to do with card fees at all; it is Oregon's advertised price rule for vehicle sales, and every dealership should understand how it fits alongside a surcharge.
Oregon Allows Credit Card Surcharging
Nothing in Oregon law touches a private merchant's card surcharge. The ceilings that matter come from the card networks.
As of July 2026, Oregon has no statute banning, capping, or regulating credit card surcharges charged by a private merchant. Nothing on the books stops a dealership from adding a standard surcharge at the counter. With no state layer to answer to, the card network rules are the entire rulebook, the same as they are in most of the country.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed |
| Cap | Card network caps |
| State statute | None for private merchants |
| Disclosure | Card network rules |
Oregon 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
Oregon never wrote a cap of its own into law, so Visa and Mastercard's published rules become the actual ceiling a dealership has to watch.
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Visa: 3% Cap
Visa's nationwide ceiling on a credit card surcharge. Oregon adds no cap of its own on top of it.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
A full point higher than Visa's, and the same nationwide reach applies in Oregon.
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Debit Never Surcharges
Network rules block a surcharge on debit, prepaid, and gift cards nationwide, and Oregon has no exception carved out.
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Disclosure Is Mandatory
Three checkpoints, no exceptions: notice at the entrance, notice again at the counter, and the surcharge broken out as its own receipt line.
No Federal Cap, No Oregon Cap Either
Some guides claim a federal law caps credit card surcharges at 4 percent, or that an Oregon merchant cannot charge more than the actual cost of processing the card. Neither claim holds up. No federal statute caps credit card surcharges, and no Oregon statute does either. The 3 percent and 4 percent ceilings a dealership runs against come from Visa and Mastercard, not from any law.
Three Statutes That Never Reach Your Store
The only Oregon laws mentioning a card surcharge were written for government agencies collecting on their own bills.
As of July 2026, no Oregon statute bans, caps, or sets disclosure rules for a credit card surcharge charged by a private business, a dealership included. With no state statute in play, the card network rules are the only rulebook a dealership has to run against.
Three Oregon statutes do mention a card surcharge: ORS 825.502, ORS 802.112, and ORS 496.148. Read them and the scope is plain: they let specific state agencies add a fee when someone pays a government bill or license by card, in areas like motor carrier regulation, vehicle titles, and wildlife licensing. None of the three reaches a private business, though surcharge guides sometimes cite them as if they applied to any Oregon merchant.
Lawmakers took a run at surcharging in 2025. Senate Bill 425 would have barred a merchant from charging a fee for using a credit or debit card, but only if that merchant did not also accept cash; surcharging itself stayed legal under the bill, and the target was cashless businesses, not the surcharge practice. It never received a committee hearing and died in committee when the 2025 session adjourned in June 2025. The short 2026 session that followed adjourned in March 2026 with nothing on surcharges. As of July 2026, no Oregon surcharge bill is law or pending.
The cash angle in that bill traces back further. A separate 2022 Oregon law, Senate Bill 1565, requires most businesses that serve the public in person to accept cash, with limited exceptions. It is not a surcharge law, and it did not change any of Oregon's surcharge rules.
No State Layer to Track
No enacted Oregon statute reaches a private merchant's credit card surcharge, and none is pending. The playbook that remains is the card network one: disclosure at every checkpoint, caps respected, debit left alone.
Oregon's Advertised Price Rule
A different kind of Oregon rule, and the one worth knowing.
Oregon's Department of Justice enforces a motor vehicle advertising rule, OAR 137-020-0050, under the state's general consumer protection law. It makes it a deceptive practice for a dealer to sell a vehicle for more than the price advertised for it.
The rule says nothing about credit card surcharges. It was written to govern vehicle advertising and pricing, not payment methods, and no Oregon guidance addresses how a surcharge is meant to interact with an advertised price.
Keep the surcharge optional, so a customer can avoid it by paying cash, check, or debit, and disclose it at the point of entry, at the point of sale, and as its own line on the receipt.
What This Means at the Counter
One playbook, and Oregon adds nothing to it.
Disclosure is the piece your team actually runs day to day: notice at the entrance, notice again at the register, and the surcharge broken out as its own line on the receipt. Add a standard 3 percent surcharge under that same routine and it stays comfortably inside Visa's cap. Debit never carries a surcharge, no exceptions and no workarounds. We track the state, not your front desk.
Oregon has no state sales tax, so the tax-on-a-surcharge question dealers run into in other states never comes up here.
CDK Drive posts the surcharge directly onto the repair order, so nobody on your team reconciles it as a separate line item. The surcharge program page has the full breakdown, and the how it works page steps through the terminal experience from tap to receipt.
Straight Answers on Oregon Rules
Yes, Oregon dealerships can add a credit card surcharge. No Oregon statute bans or limits the practice for a private merchant, so it is Visa and Mastercard's network rules, not state law, that set the real limits.
Yes, a 3 percent surcharge lands right at Visa's network ceiling, which is the real limit in Oregon since the state has no cap of its own. Mastercard's ceiling sits a point above that, at 4 percent.
No. That claim circulates online, but no Oregon statute says it, and no federal statute says it either. The only numbers that govern a credit card surcharge in Oregon are Visa's 3 percent ceiling and Mastercard's 4 percent ceiling.
Yes. A 2022 Oregon law, Senate Bill 1565, requires most businesses that serve the public in person to accept cash, with limited exceptions. It is not a surcharge law, and it did not change any of Oregon's surcharge rules.
Yes, but the ban never became law. Senate Bill 425 in the 2025 session would have barred a merchant from charging a card fee only if that merchant did not also accept cash. It never received a committee hearing and died in committee when the session adjourned in June 2025. Nothing has replaced it, and no surcharge bill is pending as of July 2026. For pricing and program questions beyond state law, see the FAQ page.
Straight Answers on Oregon
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