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ARTICLE · 15 NOVEMBER 2022

Credit Card Surcharges In Canada: What You Need To Know

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
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Between 2010 and 2018, five class actions involving merchant fees were launched in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan (collectively, the Class Actions

CanadaAntitrust/Competition Law
Cindy Zhang
Cindy Zhang
Guillaume Talbot-Lachance
Guillaume Talbot-Lachance
Stephen Redican
Stephen Redican
Luca Vita
Luca Vita
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Between 2010 and 2018, five class actions involving merchant fees were launched in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan (collectively, the Class Actions).1 One of the outcomes to the Class Actions is that the leading credit card networks whose rules prohibited surcharging to allow Canadian businesses and merchants to apply a surcharge to those credit cardholders from Oct. 6, 2022.

Previous surcharge rules

A surcharge is a fee that a merchant or business may add to a transaction where a customer chooses to pay by credit or debit card.

Québec's Consumer Protection Act requires disclosing all-inclusive prices except in limited cases, such as sales taxes (see Section 224 c.). The courts have concluded that this obligation makes it illegal to apply a surcharge.

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