What does card payment cost merchants?

Typically a percentage merchant discount rate per card type (girocard often 0.2 to 0.3 per cent, credit cards around 1 to 1.5 per cent or more), a fixed per-transaction fee of 7 to 11 cents, terminal rental of 10 to 30 euros a month, a service flat fee of 5 to 15 euros, plus one-off setup costs. Flat-rate providers instead charge around 1.39 per cent on everything with no fixed costs.

What is the difference between Interchange++ and blended pricing?

With Interchange++, interchange, scheme fee and provider margin are billed separately per transaction. With blended pricing there is one flat rate for all cards. Interchange++ is cheaper with a favourable card mix, blended is easier to plan with.

May a merchant pass the card fee on to customers?

No. Since 2018, section 270a of the German Civil Code (BGB) has prohibited surcharges for the use of payment cards in consumer business (four-party systems such as Visa, Mastercard, girocard) as well as for SEPA credit transfers and direct debits.

How much of the card fee goes to whom?

On a consumer credit card from the EEA, 0.3 per cent interchange for the issuing bank is capped by law (Regulation (EU) 2015/751, Article 4); the scheme fee to Visa or Mastercard is, according to industry figures, 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of card turnover. Everything your agreed rate goes beyond that is the margin of the acquirer or payment network operator (Netzbetreiber) — the only negotiable part.

What does card payment really cost? The eight cost components of a terminal contract

The short answer

The fee for card payment is not a price, it is a sum. It consists of a percentage share of turnover, a fixed amount per booking and several monthly and one-off items. Anyone comparing offers by the percentage alone is comparing the smallest part of the bill.

What sits inside the percentage

The percentage merchant service charge, known in the market as the merchant discount rate (Disagio), has three recipients on credit cards:

Component	Goes to	Capped by law?
Interchange	issuing bank	yes, 0.2 % debit / 0.3 % credit on consumer cards from the EEA
Scheme fee	Visa, Mastercard, girocard scheme	no
Margin	acquirer or payment network operator	no, negotiable

The cap does not apply to corporate cards, to cards from outside the European Economic Area, or to three-party systems such as American Express. An American corporate credit card therefore costs a multiple of the German girocard at the same terminal.

girocard has had no centrally set fee since 2014; the rates are negotiated with the issuing banks and in the market usually lie between 0.18 and 0.3 per cent. Since 1 January 2026 a scheme manager fee of 0.00209 per cent of girocard turnover has come on top — a small amount, but an example of how items arise that no quotation mentions.

Who gets which share of the merchant discount rate?

Model calculation for a consumer credit card from the EEA, ticket of 50 euros, agreed rate 1.20 per cent, that is 60 cents in fees:

Recipient	Rate	Share of the 60 cents	Negotiable?
Customer's bank (interchange)	0.30 %, capped by law	15 cents	no
Visa / Mastercard (scheme fee)	0.1 to 0.2 % of card turnover	5 to 10 cents	no
Your acquirer or payment network operator	the rest of your terms	35 to 40 cents	yes

Only the first line is capped (Article 4 of the Interchange Fee Regulation). The range for the scheme fee comes from the advice portal KartenKosten.de (article of 22 June 2026) and is an order of magnitude, not a published price list — PAYONE expressly states that this fee is “not regulated by law” and varies “considerably” depending on the card product and transaction type. The third line is quantified only by those who disclose it: Adyen publicly charges Interchange++ plus 0.60 per cent plus 0.11 euros per transaction (adyen.com, retrieved on 21 September 2026).

From this follows the most common misconception in the market: anyone paying 1.39 per cent is not paying “more than the EU allows”. What is capped is the interchange fee, not your merchant service charge. And from that follows the only negotiating position you have — the third line. No provider can negotiate the first two, whatever is claimed in the meeting.

What does girocard cost compared with a credit card?

Card type	Interchange regulated?	Market-standard merchant service charges	What drives the rate
girocard	no, individually negotiated since 2014	0.18 to 0.3 %, 1.39 % on a flat-rate tariff	the network operator's negotiating power
Consumer credit card from the EEA	yes, 0.3 %	around 1 to 1.5 %	scheme fee and provider margin
Corporate and non-EEA cards	no	markedly above that, surcharge varies by provider	card programme, cross-border fees
American Express	no, three-party system	3.95 % at Adyen (as at 21 September 2026)	Amex sets its own prices

The column with market-standard charges gives orders of magnitude from provider and comparison sources, not terms you are entitled to; only the caps in column two are documented and therefore beyond dispute.

The practical difference becomes visible in the average ticket. In 2025 that was 37.25 euros for girocard payments (girocard annual figures, press release of 11 February 2026). On a mixed tariff of 0.25 per cent plus 9 cents, that payment costs 18.3 cents, that is 0.49 per cent. On a flat-rate tariff of 1.39 per cent, the same payment costs 51.8 cents. That is why the card mix belongs before any contract decision: which brand really runs through your terminal is covered in my article on girocard, Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit.

The three pricing models

Interchange++: all three components are shown separately per transaction. Adyen publishes the model openly: Interchange++ plus 0.60 per cent plus 0.11 euros per transaction. With a card mix heavy on girocard and EEA debit cards this is cheap; the monthly statement is correspondingly complex.

Blended (flat rate): one percentage for almost all cards, for example 1.39 per cent at SumUp including girocard. Maximally predictable, but the provider prices in the most expensive case. Anyone taking mostly girocard is subsidising other merchants' credit card customers.

Subscription-tiered: the percentage falls in return for a monthly fee. Worth it above a certain turnover, which you have to work out beforehand.

Legally, Interchange++ is the default: Article 9 of the Interchange Fee Regulation prescribes unblending, unless the merchant asks in writing for blending. In the market it is the other way round.

The fixed items nobody advertises

Item	Usual order of magnitude
Per-transaction fee per booking	7 to 11 cents
Terminal rental	10 to 30 euros a month
Service flat fee / network operation	5 to 15 euros a month
Setup / activation	25 to 100 euros one-off
Collective account charge	up to 4 cents per girocard transaction
Stability or price adjustment surcharge	one-off, for example 27.50 euros
Chargeback fee	20 euros per chargeback at Stripe
Minimum invoice amount	depends on the provider, often not quantified

Why the per-transaction fee decides everything on small tickets

Nine cents per booking is:

on a ticket of 5 euros: 1.8 per cent
on 20 euros: 0.45 per cent
on 100 euros: 0.09 per cent

For bakeries, kiosks, cafés and hairdressers the fixed fee is therefore often more expensive than the entire merchant discount rate. Conversely, a pure percentage model with no fixed amount is cheap for small amounts and expensive for high tickets. The only sensible comparison needs three inputs: average ticket size, monthly turnover, girocard share of the card mix.

Why do card fees differ so much from sector to sector?

Not because providers treat sectors differently, but because three variables diverge from sector to sector: ticket size, card mix and chargeback risk. Ticket size has the strongest effect. Model calculation, mixed tariff of 0.25 per cent plus 9 cents against a flat rate of 1.39 per cent; the ticket sizes are assumed orders of magnitude, only the 37.25 euros is documented:

Sector	Assumed ticket	Mixed tariff	Effective	Flat rate 1.39 %
Bakery, kiosk	€4.00	10.0 cents	2.50 %	5.6 cents
Snack bar, café	€12.00	12.0 cents	1.00 %	16.7 cents
Retail (girocard average 2025)	€37.25	18.3 cents	0.49 %	51.8 cents
Restaurant	€60.00	24.0 cents	0.40 %	83.4 cents
Furniture, electricals, garage	€300.00	84.0 cents	0.28 %	€4.17

The tipping point between the two models lies just under a ticket size of 8 euros: below it the flat rate wins, above it the mixed tariff — regardless of how well anyone has negotiated. On top comes the card mix: hotels and hospitality see more credit and foreign cards than a bakery, and that is exactly where the missing cap on corporate and non-EEA cards bites. In chargeback-prone sectors the acquirer adds risk on top. Anyone searching for card fees by sector is in truth searching for their own ticket size.

Rent or buy

A rented device at 12.90 euros a month costs 619.20 euros over 48 months, a purchased device 100 to 200 euros. The rental buys service, replacement and up-to-date certification, not hardware. That is a legitimate price if the contract guarantees replacement within a set period. Contract terms range from zero (SumUp, Zettle, myPOS) through twelve months (CCV) to 36 months and more in classic bank distribution.

Why every tenth of a point counts

Section 270a BGB prohibits passing the card fee on as a surcharge in consumer business. It therefore comes entirely out of the merchant's margin. With a hospitality margin in the low single digits, the difference between a 0.4 and a 1.4 per cent merchant discount rate decides a noticeable part of the profit. What remains permitted is steering: discounts for preferred means of payment and a notice at the till.

Checklist before signing

Every item in the table above in writing, with an amount or “not applicable”.
girocard shown separately from credit cards.
Term, renewal, notice period.
Replacement period for faulty terminals.
Price adjustment clauses: who may raise prices, and when?