South Carolina Credit Card Surcharge Law
The South Carolina surcharge ban you may have read about, quoted with a precise code section and even a criminal penalty, isn't in the official Code. Surcharging is legal across the state today, and with no South Carolina statute on the books at all, the card networks are the only rulebook a dealership has to follow.
South Carolina Allows Credit Card Surcharging
The ban some guides cite for South Carolina was never enacted into law.
As of July 2026, no South Carolina statute bans, caps, or sets disclosure rules for a private merchant's credit card surcharge. The ban that circulates online was a bill that died in committee more than a decade ago and never became law, so surcharging is legal here and the card networks set the only limits that apply.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Status | Allowed |
| Cap | Card network caps |
| State statute | None for private merchants |
| Disclosure | Card network rules |
A bill introduced in January 2026, House Bill 4613, the Sales Tax Swipe Fee Fairness Act, currently sits in the House Committee on Labor, Commerce and Industry. It would bar a credit card processor from charging a swipe fee on the sales tax portion of a retail transaction and would require point of sale systems to exclude sales tax from fee calculations. It is not a surcharge bill, and it would not change what a dealership may charge a customer.
That puts South Carolina among the 47 states where surcharging is legal today; only Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts still ban it outright. The full state by state breakdown lives at credit card surcharge laws by state.
The Card Networks Set the Ceiling
With no South Carolina 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 South Carolina statute lowers it.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
Mastercard's ceiling runs a point higher than Visa's, and South Carolina 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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina Cap, Two Network Ones
South Carolina 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.
Look up whether a dealership can surcharge in South Carolina and you will keep hitting the same claim: a flat state ban on charging customers extra to pay by credit card, pinned to a precise citation, Section 39-1-100, and sometimes carrying a criminal penalty for good measure.
That section does not exist. Title 39, Chapter 1 of the official South Carolina Code of Laws runs from Section 39-1-10 through Section 39-1-90, the state's data breach notification law, and stops there. No section 39-1-100 appears anywhere in that chapter, or in any other chapter of the Code.
The language people quote traces to House Bill 3477, introduced in February 2013 and referred to the House Committee on Labor, Commerce and Industry. It would have added a new Section 39-1-100 barring a seller from surcharging a customer who pays by credit card, and would have made a violation a misdemeanor. It never advanced out of that committee, never passed either chamber, and died when the 2013 to 2014 session ended.
Some write-ups frame this as an old ban that was loosened in 2013. No such change ever took effect. The 2013 bill died in committee, and South Carolina has no enacted surcharge statute today.
The Bill That Never Passed Doesn't Change Anything
As of July 2026, House Bill 3477 has been dead for more than a decade, so there is no state ban, no criminal penalty, and no Section 39-1-100 for a dealership to worry about. Surcharging is legal, disclosure already runs at entry and 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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina Rules
Yes. There is no South Carolina 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 South Carolina law, current or ever enacted, the card networks set the ceiling: Visa allows up to 3 percent, Mastercard up to 4 percent.
No. That citation traces to House Bill 3477, a 2013 bill that never advanced out of committee and never became law. Section 39-1-100 does not appear anywhere in the official South Carolina Code, which stops its Title 39, Chapter 1 numbering at Section 39-1-90.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards never carry a surcharge here, and that has nothing to do with South Carolina law. It is a card network rule that applies everywhere, regardless of what any state statute says.
No. House Bill 4613, introduced in January 2026, targets swipe fees a processor charges on the sales tax portion of a transaction, not surcharges charged to customers, and it remains in committee. Questions about pricing and the program itself, rather than state law, are answered on the FAQ page.
Straight Answers on South Carolina
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