Can you pass card fees on to parents?

Short answer: you generally can't legally add a surcharge — a separate fee just for paying by card — but you can absolutely build the cost into your price. That's not a surcharge, it's simply your price, and it's allowed everywhere. Adminished does the maths for you.

Why a card surcharge is off the table

• UK & Ireland: adding a fee for paying by a personal debit or credit card — or Apple Pay / Google Pay — has been illegal since 2018. The surcharge is unenforceable and you're exposed to penalties.
• Australia is phasing in a ban on card surcharging (finalised in 2026). New Zealand, Canada and the US only allow it in narrow, capped, clearly-disclosed ways (often credit cards only, never debit, with cost caps — and some places ban it outright).
• Stripe and the card networks only permit surcharging where the local law does — and the legal responsibility sits with you, the business taking the payment, not with the platform.

This is general guidance, not legal advice — the rules differ by country and change over time, so check the position where your club operates before relying on it.

What you can do instead — build the fee into the price

Setting one inclusive price that quietly covers your costs is not a surcharge — it's just your price, and it's legal in every market. The parent sees a single figure with no separate "card fee" line. This is the approach we'd always recommend.

The easy way — "Add transaction fee to price"

When you create a payment request at Payments → New payment request, switch on Add transaction fee to price. You type the round number you want to receive; Adminished grosses it up so you get that exact amount, and the parent sees one total price — never a separate fee.

For example: you want £10. With the toggle on, the parent pays about £10.52 as a single price, and you receive £10.00 exactly. There's no "fee" line on their payment screen — so you stay on the right side of the surcharge rules automatically. See Who pays the transaction fee for the full detail.

Monthly fees and events

The toggle currently lives on payment requests. For monthly class fees or event tickets, just set the price a little higher to absorb the cost — enough to cover Stripe's processing fee (roughly 1.5% + 20p on cards) plus our 1% platform fee. On a £30 fee that's about an extra 95p, so you'd charge around £31. Same principle: one price, fee baked in.

Cheaper than passing it on — use Direct Debit

Direct Debit costs far less to process than cards, so there's much less fee to absorb or build in. Steering parents onto Direct Debit and choosing which methods your club accepts is often the bigger win. See How to save money on payment fees.

Two things to avoid

• Don't show parents a separate "card fee" line. An add-on fee for paying by card is exactly the surcharge that's banned in the UK, Ireland and (soon) Australia.
• Don't charge card-payers more than cash-payers for the same thing. A "card price vs cash price" split can itself be treated as an illegal surcharge in the UK and Ireland. Keep one price for everyone, whichever way they pay.

Related articles

• Who pays the fee

  How the "Add transaction fee to price" toggle on payment requests works: when on, parents cover the Stripe + platform fee and you receive the round number; when off, the fee comes out of your share.

• Saving on fees

  Direct Debit costs less than cards in Stripe processing fees. How to set which payment methods your club accepts to cut fees, what each method costs, and the trade-offs.

• Taking payments

  Generate monthly charges, record cash or bank-transfer payments, and see who still owes money at a glance.

• Connecting Stripe

  Step-by-step walkthrough of Stripe Connect onboarding: what you need before you start, the verification flow, fees, payout schedule, and the common gotchas.

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