Payment processing fees: what a card payment really costs a European merchant

What are payment processing fees made of?

This guide explains payment processing fees for merchants in the EU: where each part comes from, which parts are regulated, how pricing models compare, what a €50 payment costs under published price lists, and which fees in a contract are easy to miss. In German these costs are usually searched as "Kartenzahlung Gebühren" or "Kreditkartengebühren Händler", in Dutch as "transactiekosten".

Payment processing fees are made of interchange, scheme fees and the acquirer's or PSP's margin, plus fees triggered by specific events. Each goes to a different party.

The acquirer is the bank or licensed institution that accepts card payments on the merchant's behalf; see acquirer. The payment processor handles the technical flow; see payment processor. A PSP often packages both with a gateway and its own pricing. See what is a payment service provider.

What are the EU interchange caps (Interchange-Gebühren)?

The EU Interchange Fee Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2015/751, caps interchange on consumer cards issued and used in the EEA at 0.2% of the transaction value for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards (Articles 3 and 4, eur-lex.europa.eu). These caps apply to Visa and Mastercard consumer cards in four-party schemes.

What the caps do not cover:

The cap is on interchange only. Scheme fees and the PSP margin come on top.

• Commercial cards (business and corporate cards) are outside the caps, so their interchange is higher.
• Three-party schemes such as American Express are generally outside the caps when they issue cards themselves.
• Cards issued outside the EEA. For online payments made with non-EEA consumer cards at EEA merchants, Visa and Mastercard committed to caps of 1.15% for debit and 1.50% for credit in the European Commission case AT.40049 (Commission decision of 29 April 2019, ec.europa.eu).

Interchange++ vs blended vs tiered pricing: what is the difference?

Interchange++ passes each cost through separately, blended pricing charges one rate, and tiered pricing groups cards into a few price bands.

Interchange++ is offered by Adyen as its card pricing model (adyen.com/pricing, checked 23 October 2026) and by Mollie to merchants processing more than €100,000 a month (mollie.com/pricing, checked 23 October 2026).

Blended pricing is the standard model at Stripe and Mollie. Mollie describes it as one collective fee per transaction regardless of the underlying charges (mollie.com/pricing).

Tiered pricing is less transparent, because you cannot see why a card landed in a higher band.

How much does a €50 card payment cost? A worked example

This example shows what a €50 online payment with an EEA consumer card costs under published blended prices and under the regulated part of interchange++. Prices were checked on 23 October 2026.

How to read it. Under IC++ the regulated part is small. The total depends on S and M, which you get from the scheme fee pass-through and your provider's markup. Compare the two models with your own card mix from last month's transactions, not with one example.

• Payment amount: €50.00, online, EEA consumer card, EEA merchant.
• Blended prices from the providers' public pages for standard EEA consumer cards.
• For interchange++, only interchange is fixed by law; the scheme fee (S) and the provider margin (M) come from your own quote, so they are shown as variables.
• Consumer debit: 0.2% interchange cap, €0.10 interchange on €50, €0.10 + S + M total.
• Consumer credit: 0.3% interchange cap, €0.15 interchange on €50, €0.15 + S + M total.

How much does a card payment cost a merchant?

A card payment costs a merchant the interchange, the scheme fee and the provider margin, and the total depends on card type, origin and pricing model. As the example shows, published blended rates for standard EEA consumer cards at two large providers come to €1.00 to €1.15 on €50. Premium, commercial and non-EEA cards cost more: Stripe's standard pricing for Ireland, for instance, lists 2.8% + €0.25 for premium EEA cards, 2.5% + €0.25 for UK cards and 3.15% + €0.25 for international cards, plus 2% if currency conversion is required (stripe.com/ie/pricing, checked 23 October 2026).

In-store pricing is often different from online pricing, because terminals, authorisation fees and monthly charges come into play.

How to calculate your effective rate. The most useful number for comparing offers is your effective rate: total payment fees in a month divided by total card volume in the same month. To get it:

Send the same card mix to each provider you are comparing and ask them to price it. A quote based on your real mix is far more reliable than a headline rate, because the share of commercial and non-EEA cards often decides which model is cheaper.

Are surcharges for card payments allowed?

Not for consumer cards covered by the IFR. PSD2 (Directive (EU) 2015/2366), Article 62(4) bans surcharges only for payment instruments whose interchange is regulated under Chapter II of the IFR (Regulation (EU) 2015/751), meaning consumer debit and credit card transactions where both the card issuer and the acquirer are in the EEA, and for payments under the SEPA Regulation, such as SEPA credit transfers and direct debits.

For cards outside the IFR caps, such as commercial cards, three-party scheme cards and cards issued outside the EEA, the PSD2 ban does not apply; member states may allow or restrict surcharges, and some ban them altogether. Any allowed surcharge may not exceed the merchant's actual cost. Check national rules before adding one.

Is paying by card more expensive than cash for a merchant?

It depends on the business, and only a cost study of your own operations can answer it. Cash has its own costs: counting, storage, insurance, transport to the bank and the risk of loss or theft. Central banks, including the ECB, have published studies that compare the social and private costs of retail payment methods; their results vary by country and business type. If you need a figure, use the most recent study for your country and quote it with its date.

What do alternative payment methods cost compared with cards?

Alternative payment methods (APMs) are priced differently from cards, often with a fixed fee per transaction instead of a percentage. Published examples from Mollie, checked 23 October 2026 (mollie.com/pricing):

For larger baskets, a fixed fee is usually cheaper than a percentage, while buy-now-pay-later methods usually cost more than cards because the provider takes on credit risk. See iDEAL for how a fixed-fee bank method works.

Which hidden fees should you check in a PSP contract?

The fees that are easy to miss are the ones that do not appear in the headline rate. Check these:

• Chargeback fees. Stripe publishes a €20 dispute received fee and a €20 dispute countered fee, the latter refunded if you win (stripe.com/ie/pricing, checked 23 October 2026). See chargebacks.
• Currency conversion. Fees for converting payouts into your account currency; Mollie, for example, lists 1% of the payout amount for payouts in a different currency than the primary balance (mollie.com/pricing).
• Payout fees. Charges per payout above a free number per month.
• Monthly minimums. A minimum invoice or minimum monthly service charge.
• Authorisation fees. A fixed fee per authorisation attempt, including declines.
• Refund fees. Whether the original fee is returned on refund; often it is not.
• PCI DSS and compliance fees. Monthly charges for security programmes.
• Closure or early termination fees.
• Rolling reserves. Not a fee, but an amount held back that affects cash flow.

How can payment orchestration help manage payment processing fees?

Payment orchestration helps by letting you use more than one provider and decide which payments go where, so each payment can go to the contract that suits it best. OrsunPay is a payment orchestration platform that connects you to licensed PSPs; it does not process or hold funds itself.

Savings depend on your volume, card mix and contracts, so we do not quote a percentage. OrsunPay charges a platform fee that is separate from your PSPs' processing fees. See current plans on our pricing page. See also payment orchestration and the comparisons of Stripe, Adyen, Mollie and Worldpay alternatives.

• You choose which provider handles which payments; rule-based routing across connected providers applies those choices, and retries can send a declined payment to another connection.
• Check with your provider which fee reports it offers; comparing them across providers makes contract talks easier.
• A second provider gives you a fallback and a basis for comparison.

How to calculate your effective rate

1. Export settlement reports Export last month's settlement reports from your current provider.
2. Add up every fee line Add up every fee line: transaction fees, scheme fees, chargebacks, refunds, payouts, currency conversion and monthly charges.
3. Divide by gross card volume Divide by the gross card volume.
4. Split by card type Split the result by card type (consumer debit, consumer credit, commercial, non-EEA) where the report allows it.