Washington Credit Card Surcharge Law
Washington credit card surcharge law permits surcharging outright. No state statute bans it, caps it, or sets disclosure terms for a private business like a dealership, so the card network ceilings do that work instead. The one wrinkle worth flagging for your books: Washington taxes a surcharge the same way it taxes the sale that carries it.
Washington Allows Credit Card Surcharging
No ban, no cap, no state disclosure rule. Washington never wrote one for a private merchant.
Visa's 3 percent ceiling and Mastercard's 4 percent ceiling are the only numbers that matter to a Washington dealership running a credit card surcharge, because Olympia never wrote a statute of its own to sit alongside them. Nothing on the books bans the practice, caps it below the network ceilings, or spells out how a private business has to disclose it. A service drive charging a standard surcharge is not probing some gray corner of Washington law; the state simply left this question to the card networks and never picked it back up.
| 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, Washington sits with most of the country on this question. Surcharging is legal in 47 states, and Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts are the only three where it is banned outright. Washington was never one of the holdouts. See the full state by state table at credit card surcharge laws by state.
The Card Networks Set the Ceiling
With no state statute on the books, Visa and Mastercard write the whole rulebook.
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Visa: 3% Cap
Visa caps a credit card surcharge at 3 percent nationwide. Washington sets no lower ceiling of its own.
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Mastercard: 4% Cap
Mastercard caps a credit card surcharge at 4 percent, its own standard running alongside Visa's.
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Debit Never Surcharges
Debit, prepaid, and gift cards can never carry a surcharge, in Washington or any other state.
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Disclosure Is Mandatory
Post notice at the door and the counter, and itemize the surcharge as its own line on the receipt.
The "Federal Cap" Myth
Some guides describe the 3 and 4 percent ceilings as if they came from a federal rule that covers every merchant in the country. No federal law caps credit card surcharges. Those numbers are Visa's and Mastercard's own network rules, not an act of Congress, and they are the only ceilings a Washington dealership needs to run against today.
What RCW 19.200.010 Actually Says
What guides call Washington's surcharge disclosure law does not exist.
Surcharge guides across the web cite RCW 19.200.010 as if it were a Washington surcharge disclosure statute, the section that supposedly forces a business to post notice at the door, at the point of sale, and again on the receipt. That is not what it does. RCW 19.200.010 is a receipt privacy law. It bars a business that accepts credit cards from printing more than the last five digits of the card number, or the card's expiration date, on a receipt handed to the customer at the point of sale.
Read past the headline and the pattern holds. The word surcharge never appears in the section, it sets no percentage, and it says nothing about what a business may add to a bill for accepting a card. A dealership that surcharges in Washington is not working around RCW 19.200.010 in any sense; the statute was never built to reach that question. As of July 2026, no Washington statute sets a surcharge specific disclosure rule at all. The standard a dealership actually has to meet, notice at the door, notice at the counter, and an itemized receipt line, comes from Visa and Mastercard, not from this or any other Washington law.
No Washington Surcharge Statute
RCW 19.200.010 governs what a receipt may print about a card number, not what a business may charge for accepting one. Our program's receipts never print full card numbers or expiration dates in the first place, in Washington or anywhere else. The disclosure standard for the surcharge itself still comes from the card networks.
What This Means at the Counter
One rulebook at the counter, plus one line for your accountant.
Customers pay the standard credit card surcharge, and disclosure runs the same three ways at every counter: a notice at the door, a notice at the point of sale, and the surcharge itemized as its own line on the receipt. Debit never carries a surcharge, no exceptions, no workarounds. Phone, text to pay, and online link payments run through the program with that same required disclosure. Refunds return the surcharge automatically and proportionally. A full refund returns the full surcharge; a partial refund returns its share. We track the state, not your front desk.
One Washington specific note for your accountant. The Washington Department of Revenue's current published guidance treats a surcharge a business adds to cover its own costs, including the cost of accepting a credit card, as part of the selling price, taxed the same way the underlying sale is taxed. When the item sold is subject to sales tax, the surcharge riding on that sale is too. The exact rate and how it gets coded on your system are questions for your accountant or tax advisor to sort out for your store. DealerPayments does not calculate, file, or advise on sales tax.
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 what happens at the terminal on the how it works page.
Straight Answers on Washington Rules
Yes. Washington has no state statute that bans or caps a credit card surcharge for a private merchant. Card network rules govern instead.
No. Visa sets a 3 percent ceiling and Mastercard sets its own 4 percent ceiling, and those network rules do all the capping. Washington has never layered a state limit on top of either one.
No state statute sets a surcharge disclosure rule. The section often cited for this, RCW 19.200.010, is a receipt privacy law that limits what a business may print about a card number, and it never mentions surcharges. The disclosure standard, notice at the door, notice at the counter, and an itemized receipt line, comes from the card networks. For pricing and program questions beyond state law, see the FAQ page.
No. Debit, prepaid, and gift cards never carry a surcharge, not in Washington and not anywhere else. The rule belongs to the card networks, and it travels with the card type itself, whatever counter or terminal the transaction passes through.
Yes, generally. The Washington Department of Revenue's current published guidance treats the surcharge as part of the taxable selling price, so when the underlying sale is taxable, sales tax applies to the surcharge riding on it too. Talk to your accountant about how that lands on your statements. DealerPayments does not advise on tax.
Straight Answers on Washington
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