Rhode Island Credit Card Surcharge Law
The Rhode Island surcharge law you may have read about, complete with a rate cap and a detailed signage rule tied to a specific section number, does not exist anywhere in the official Rhode Island General Laws. Surcharging is allowed here today, with no state statute of any kind on the books, so card network rules set the ceiling instead.
Rhode Island Allows Credit Card Surcharging
The cap some guides cite for Rhode Island was never state law to begin with.
As of July 2026, Rhode Island has no statute on its books for private merchant credit card surcharges: no ban, no cap, no disclosure rule of its own. Surcharging is allowed on that empty record, and Visa and Mastercard's own rules fill the gap, just as they do in every other state where surcharging is legal.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed |
| Cap | Card network caps |
| State statute | None for private merchants |
| Disclosure | Card network rules |
A 2026 attempt to add a state notice rule stalled before it went anywhere. House Bill 7022, introduced in January 2026, would have added a new disclosure requirement, a clearly posted notice of the surcharge amount where a customer pays, effective January 1, 2027 had it passed. Its committee held the bill for further study in late January, it never advanced, and it died when the General Assembly adjourned on June 11, 2026. It is not law.
Add Rhode Island to the list of 47 states that allow surcharging outright; only Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts still ban it. The full breakdown lives at credit card surcharge laws by state.
The Card Networks Set the Ceiling
With no Rhode Island statute in play, Visa and Mastercard's own limits are the numbers that matter.
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Visa: 3% Cap
Visa has capped surcharges at 3 percent nationwide since April 2023. No Rhode Island statute lowers it.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
Mastercard's ceiling runs a point higher than Visa's, and Rhode Island leaves that number exactly where the network set it.
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Debit Never Surcharges
Debit, prepaid, and gift cards never carry a surcharge, full stop, no matter what any Rhode Island bill has proposed over the years.
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Disclosure Is Mandatory
Post notice where the customer pays, and itemize the surcharge as its own line on the receipt.
No Rhode Island Cap, Two Network Ones
Rhode Island never wrote its own percentage into law, so Visa's 3 percent and Mastercard's 4 percent are what a dealership here actually has to watch. A standard 3 percent credit card surcharge sits inside Visa's cap.
A Statute That Isn't There
A specific citation, repeated widely, that traces back to a bill that never passed.
Search for Rhode Island's surcharge law and a lot of what turns up describes a state that regulates surcharging closely: a percentage cap on the rate, plus a detailed signage requirement, a notice posted at the entrance and again at the point of sale, printed in 16 point font, and displayed on the business's website. Several of those guides attach a specific citation to all of it, Rhode Island General Laws section 6-13.1-2.1.
That section does not exist. The official Rhode Island General Laws do contain a chapter 6-13.1, but it is the state's Deceptive Trade Practices law, the general consumer protection chapter. It has no surcharge section of any kind, and no section numbered 6-13.1-2.1 appears anywhere in its official section index.
The rules being described trace to a bill that never became law. Senate Bill 925, introduced in the 2021 session, would have capped credit card surcharges at 1 percent and required the entrance and point of sale notices in 16 point font that these guides describe. It died in the Senate Commerce Committee in 2021 and was never enacted. The 4 percent, or actual processing cost, figure that some of the same sources repeat appears in no primary source either.
As of July 2026, no percentage cap, no signage requirement, and no section 6-13.1-2.1 exist anywhere in Rhode Island law. What gets repeated online describes a 2021 bill that died in committee, not a current statute, because there is no current statute. The card network rules are the whole rulebook.
The Bill That Never Was Doesn't Change Anything
Senate Bill 925 died in the Senate Commerce Committee in 2021 and was never enacted, so there is no signage rule, no cap, and no notice requirement it created for this program to catch up to. Notice already runs at the point of entry, notice already runs again at the point of sale, and the surcharge already itemizes as its own line on the receipt. We track the state, not your front desk.
What This Means at the Counter
There's exactly one rulebook to follow here, and it belongs to the card networks.
Because Rhode Island has no state rule of its own, what happens at the counter comes straight from the card networks: a standard 3 percent surcharge sits inside Visa's cap, notice goes up at the door and again at the register, and the surcharge shows as its own line on the receipt. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards stay off limits entirely, no matter what a bill or a blog post once suggested.
The repair order in CDK Drive shows the surcharge line the moment it posts, right where your advisors already work the deal. 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 Rhode Island Rules
Yes. There is no Rhode Island statute of any kind, current or otherwise, that bans or caps a private merchant's credit card surcharge. Card network rules fill that gap entirely.
Yes. With no cap in Rhode Island law, current or ever enacted, the card networks set the ceiling: Visa allows up to 3 percent, Mastercard up to 4 percent.
No. That rule comes from Senate Bill 925 of the 2021 session, which never passed. No Rhode Island statute sets signage rules for surcharges. The card networks' own disclosure rules, notice before the transaction and an itemized receipt line, still apply.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards never carry a surcharge here, and that has nothing to do with Rhode Island law. It is a card network rule that applies everywhere, regardless of what any state statute says.
No. House Bill 7022, introduced in January 2026, would have added a notice requirement for the surcharge amount where customers pay. Its committee held it for further study, and it died when the General Assembly adjourned in June 2026. Questions about pricing and the program itself, rather than state law, are answered on the FAQ page.
Straight Answers on Rhode Island
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