Why is American Express more expensive for merchants than Visa and Mastercard?

Because Amex is a three-party system: card issuing and merchant settlement sit inside the same company, there is no interchange fee — and therefore nothing to cap. Article 1(3)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 expressly exempts cards issued under three-party schemes from the cap.

Do I have to accept Amex if I accept Visa and Mastercard?

No. There is no cross-brand obligation to accept; Article 10(1) of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 binds merchants at most within the same card payment scheme. American Express is a scheme of its own with its own acceptance contract, which you either sign or do not sign.

Is the direct contract with Amex worth it, or settlement via the acquirer?

On price the direct contract wins as a rule: American Express advertises a service fee from 1.5 per cent for small merchants, while published acquirer price lists put Amex at between 2.49 and 3.95 per cent. What the acquirer route buys you instead is a single statement and a single incoming payment.

May I charge a surcharge for an Amex payment?

By its wording, the prohibition in section 270a of the German Civil Code (BGB) does not apply to three-party systems, because Chapter II of the Regulation does not apply to them. What remains as a limit, though, is section 312a(4) BGB: there must be a common, reasonable and free-of-charge alternative, and the surcharge must not exceed your actual costs.

Accepting American Express or not: what Amex really costs a merchant

The short answer

Amex is more expensive than girocard, Visa and Mastercard — but the extra only hits the small part of your turnover that is actually paid by Amex, and it turns out very differently depending on whether you accept directly with American Express or via your acquirer. On a 90-euro receipt the direct contract costs around ten cents more than a flat rate of 1.39 per cent, while the detour via an acquirer costs around 1.17 euros more (model calculation, price lists as at 16 September 2026). The real sum is therefore not a fee calculation but a contribution-margin calculation.

Why Amex works differently from Visa and Mastercard

American Express is a three-party system: the same company issues the card and settles with you as the merchant. The Oesterreichische Nationalbank describes it matter-of-factly — in such a system no interchange fee exists, it “would amount to an internal transfer” (oenb.at, retrieved on 16 September 2026). Everything else follows from precisely that: where there is no interchange fee, there is nothing to cap either. Article 1(3)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 expressly exempts “transactions with payment cards issued by three-party payment card schemes” from Chapter II — which is where the 0.2 per cent for debit and 0.3 per cent for credit cards sit (EUR-Lex, full text re-read today).

One subtlety that is rarely mentioned: Article 1(5) puts a three-party scheme on the same footing as a four-party scheme as soon as it licenses other payment service providers or issues with co-branding partners. What that means for terms in an individual case depends on the specific licensing structure and, to my knowledge, has not been settled in court; in the published price lists, at any rate, it does not show up as a cheaper Amex rate.

The flip side of the missing regulation is almost never told: because Amex does not sort into the Regulation’s card categories, the direct contract does not differentiate along them either. American Express writes on its own acceptance page that the service fee is “uniform for all card types, whether from the EU, outside the EU or business cards” (americanexpress.com, retrieved on 16 September 2026). For a hotel with foreign business travellers that matters: a corporate group’s US company card is, if anything, more expensive via Visa or Mastercard than the same bill on Amex — that is the point at which my page on corporate and non-EEA cards and this one converge.

Two routes to acceptance — and a clear price difference

Route	What is published (as at 16 September 2026)	Settlement
Direct contract American Express	“From 1.5 % service fee” for small merchants, no setup or transaction costs, no minimum contract term, no minimum turnover	own payment plan, own incoming payment
Adyen	€0.11 + 0.80 % + 3.95 % for Amex (Visa/Mastercard: €0.11 + 0.80 % + Interchange++)	one statement
myPOS, terminal	2.69 % (tariff without a base fee) or 2.49 % (€19 or €39/month) for “all other cards, including American Express”	one statement
myPOS, card not present	3.19 % + €0.20 or 2.99 % + €0.15 / + €0.10	one statement
SumUp	1.39 % flat or 0.79 % from €19/month, no separate Amex rate stated	one statement

Two notes on that. First: Adyen has raised its own processing margin from 0.60 to 0.80 per cent compared with my figures of 1 August 2026 — anyone working from older comparisons is calculating wrongly. Second: a flat tariff that does not state Amex separately is no proof that Amex costs the same rate. That belongs in writing before you sign.

What the extra actually amounts to per receipt

Model calculation with freely chosen reference values: the benchmark is a flat rate of 1.39 per cent, as advertised in the market for card-present payments.

Ticket size	Amex direct (1.5 %)	Amex via acquirer (2.69 %)	Reference 1.39 %	Extra, direct	Extra, via acquirer
€25	€0.38	€0.67	€0.35	+€0.03	+€0.33
€45	€0.68	€1.21	€0.63	+€0.05	+€0.59
€90	€1.35	€2.42	€1.25	+€0.10	+€1.17
€250	€3.75	€6.73	€3.48	+€0.28	+€3.25
€800	€12.00	€21.52	€11.12	+€0.88	+€10.40

And now the counter-calculation that is usually missing from the discussion. A restaurant with 60,000 euros of monthly turnover and an Amex share of four per cent puts 2,400 euros through Amex. Via the direct contract that is 36 euros of service fee a month, against the 33.36 euros the same turnover would have cost at 1.39 per cent: 2.64 euros in extra costs a month. At a contribution margin of 30 per cent on a 90-euro bill, a single additional table brings in 27 euros. One turned-away guest per quarter therefore already tips the calculation. Via the acquirer it looks different: 2,400 euros at 2.69 per cent is 64.56 euros, around 31 euros in extra costs a month — here it takes more than one guest, and that is exactly why the direct contract is worth a look.

Where the advertised entry price ends

The 1.5 per cent sits under a footnote, and that footnote is the actual content of the contract. It applies “for almost all sectors in the small-merchant category for American Express card turnover of up to 100,000 euros (or for hotels up to 50,000 euros) within 12 consecutive months. After that, the service fee separately agreed for this case in the service application applies.” Excluded under the same footnote are airlines, car rental, nightclubs, petrol stations, franchise partners, transport, business-to-business, travel agencies and the acceptance of foreign currencies; the offer applies only to new acceptance partners and independent merchants (americanexpress.com, retrieved on 16 September 2026).

Translated: the entry price ends precisely when Amex starts working for you. So ask before you sign what the rate is above the threshold, not afterwards. A second point from practice: terminal activation runs through American Express after the contract is signed (retrospectively via the POS service on 069 9797 2222), and when your money arrives is set by an “individual payment plan”. You therefore have a second incoming payment and a second reconciliation in your accounts — where Amex turnover is small, that is the most honest disadvantage of the direct contract.

Refusing is allowed — steering is too

There is no cross-brand obligation to accept. Article 10(1) of the Regulation prohibits rules that force merchants to accept further instruments of the same card payment scheme; Amex is a scheme of its own with its own contract. Anyone who accepts only part of the cards within a scheme must display that clearly at the entrance to the premises and at the till under paragraph 4 — and even those who do not carry Amex at all do better with an honest notice at the entrance than with the discussion at the till.

The underrated lever is in Article 11: agreements must not prevent you from giving customers incentives for a payment instrument you prefer, nor from providing information about merchant service charges. A friendly “we like girocard best” is therefore permitted — usually the better route than a refusal that costs you the guest.

What I advise merchants

Measure your Amex share before you argue about it: three monthly statements, turnover by card type. There are no public market figures for the Amex share in Germany — every quoted proportion is an estimate, your own statement is the only reliable source.
Work through both routes, direct contract against acquirer rate, using your real Amex turnover and not your total turnover.
Ask for the rate above the turnover threshold (100,000 euros, hotels 50,000 euros) and have it put in writing.
Check the sector exclusions — petrol stations, franchises, travel agencies, B2B and foreign currency fall outside the entry offer.
Settle the second incoming payment with your accounts department before the first payment plan takes effect.
Have the terminal activated and order the acceptance material, otherwise you are paying for acceptance the guest never sees.
If you refuse, say so at the entrance — not once the bill is on the table.
Steer instead of refusing where you can: pointing to the payment method you prefer is permitted and costs you no guest.