Self-employed association ESD rejects mandatory card acceptance — citing the Bundesbank

What happened

The first organised resistance to the planned mandatory card acceptance is not coming from retail but from the self-employed. On 13 September 2026 the Europaverband der Selbständigen — Deutschland (ESD) e.V. (European association of the self-employed, Germany) published a media statement rejecting the federal finance ministry’s key points for an obligation to offer a digital payment option. ESD president Timo Lehberger calls card acceptance an entrepreneurial decision that belongs to whoever carries the risk. The association points to the Bundesbank study “Zahlungsverhalten in Deutschland 2025” (payment behaviour in Germany 2025), according to which 55 per cent of recorded purchases were paid cashlessly and 45 per cent in cash — the cash share thus fell by six percentage points compared with 2023, while the debit card reached 26 per cent of transactions. The market, it argues, has long been managing the shift by itself. The ESD sharply criticises the ministry’s reasoning based on tax evasion and money laundering: it places businesses that want to continue accepting cash under blanket suspicion. The association appeals to members of parliament from the CDU and CSU as well as to the SPD’s Seeheimer Kreis to intervene in the ongoing process. The key points are still in interdepartmental coordination, and a cabinet decision is planned for this year.

Who it affects

Small businesses without a terminal: snack bars, licensed market stalls, tradespeople selling for cash, solo self-employed people with customer contact. In other words, exactly the group that would have to decide on a contract, a device and fees for the first time under an obligation from 2027 — and that has so far had no reason to.

Assessment

The ESD supplies the best argument against its own position along with it. If 55 per cent of purchases are already cashless, then the obligation hits a shrinking minority of businesses — and for them the switching effort is smaller than the association paints it. A terminal is not a project, it is a decision about contract term and fee model. On the cost point, however, the association is right, and it is what we tell merchants every day: cash and girocard are the cheapest routes at the point of sale, international debit and credit cards the most expensive. Anyone required by law to open up one payment method in practice opens up all of them — and that is exactly what the calculations are about.

The accusation of blanket suspicion, by contrast, hits a sore spot in the ministry’s paper. Consumer friendliness and tax enforcement are two different justifications with two different legal consequences. Anyone who writes both into the same set of key points should not be surprised at the tone of the responses. For businesses, none of this changes the timetable: cabinet still in 2026, entry into force in 2027. Anyone who waits until the law is settled will be negotiating at peak demand.

What to do now

1. If you currently take cash only: write down your own average ticket and the number of transactions per day. Without those two figures, no terminal offer can be assessed.
2. Compare offers not by monthly rental but by total cost per 1,000 euros of turnover — separately for girocard and international cards.
3. Follow the course of the legislative process: the cabinet decision and the hardship provision determine whether your own business is covered at all.