Australia's Surcharge Ban and New Rent Payment Fees
Australia's ban on card surcharges took effect on 1 October. It covers Visa, Mastercard and Eftpos payments on debit and credit cards. At least 1.2 million rent payments each month are made on rent-tech platforms in Australia. The Guardian
OurProperty stopped accepting direct card payments across Australia after the ban. It had previously charged a 1.95% card surcharge. It now routes card payments through Pay4it, a platform founded in August by OurProperty founder Russell Burstow that charges 1.95% service fees. The Guardian Card payment is no longer an option inside OurProperty. It is supplied by a separate entity and priced as a service fee rather than a surcharge.
In Victoria, OurProperty will introduce memberships. A platinum membership costing 1.95% of monthly rent waives Pay4it card-payment service fees. Tenants will by default receive a silver membership where the real estate agency covers fees for direct debit and automated bank transfer. Outside Victoria, OurProperty will still charge fees for direct debit and automated bank transfer. Ailo has separately swapped card surcharges for paid memberships after the surcharge ban. The Guardian
Victoria has separate tenancy rules. It prohibited rent-tech companies from charging fees on rent payments in March. The ban on third-party fees for rental applications and rent payments took effect on 31 March 2026. Rental apps and rent payment platforms are banned from charging renters fees for making a rental application or paying rent. Rental providers cannot charge fees or fines for issuing a rent payment card. Charging a renter for using a rent payment card or direct debit to pay rent is prohibited under s.51(3) and carries 60 penalty units, the standard units used to set fines. Consumer Affairs Victoria Victoria will ban rental providers and real estate agents from charging fees to pay rent or submit tenancy applications later in October.
The national payments rules come from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The Bank concluded that removing card surcharging is in the public interest and stated that surcharging is no longer achieving its intended purpose. The Payments System Board will remove surcharging by lifting the prohibition on 'no-surcharge' rules for all designated card networks. The changes effective 1 October 2026 also include reductions in interchange caps, limits on wholesale fees banks pay each other when cards are used. Reserve Bank of Australia An Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report identified 57 rent-tech platforms operating in Australia. Increasing numbers of Australian real estate agents are moving tenants' rent payments onto rent-tech platforms.
The broader context here is a collision between two regulatory logics. Payments regulation treats the surcharge as a merchant pricing practice to be prohibited at network level. Tenancy regulation in Victoria treats any renter-paid fee for paying rent or applying as a prohibited rent cost, regardless of what the intermediary calls it. For specialists, the question is whether relabelling, corporate separation and membership bundling change the legal character of the charge.
In my view, the OurProperty-Pay4it structure tests that boundary most directly. A 1.95% service fee levied by an associated entity matches the economics of the former 1.95% surcharge. A 1.95% platinum membership that waives that fee repeats it again inside a subscription wrapper. Regulators will likely look past form to incidence: who pays, for what function, and whether a fee-free pathway remains genuinely accessible. Victoria's dual track, agency-paid bank transfer inside the state and renter-paid bank transfer outside it, will focus that inquiry on default settings and cost-shifting between principals and agents.
