rec_66

(66) Different national practices concerning charging for the use of a given payment instrument (‘surcharging’) have led to extreme heterogeneity of the Union’s payments market and have become a source of confusion for consumers, in particular in the e-commerce and cross-border context. Merchants located in Member States where surcharging is allowed offer products and services in Member States where surcharging is prohibited and surcharges the consumer. There are also many examples of merchants surcharging consumers at levels much higher than the cost borne by the merchant for the use of a specific payment instrument. Moreover, a strong rationale for revising surcharging practices is supported by the fact that Regulation (EU) 2015/751 establishes rules for interchange fees for card-based payments. Interchange fees constitute the main component of merchant charges for cards and card-based payments. Surcharging is the steering practice sometimes used by merchants to compensate for the additional costs of card-based payments. Regulation (EU) 2015/751 imposes limits on the level of interchange fees. Those limits will apply before the prohibition set out in this Directive. Consequently, Member States should consider preventing payees from requesting charges for the use of payment instruments for which the interchange fees are regulated in Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2015/751.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.