RestrictedLast verified: 2026-08-25

Is credit card surcharging legal in Louisiana?

Usually yes, with conditions. Louisiana allows a credit card surcharge but attaches rules you have to meet. Louisiana permits credit card surcharges but banned debit card surcharges effective 1 August 2026 under Act 751 (SB 254, 2026). The Act defines a surcharge as any additional amount that increases the charge to a cardholder for the privilege of using a debit card and forbids retail businesses from imposing one. It includes a pre-suit notice and 30-day cure mechanism, and civil penalties of up to $500 per violation for failing to comply with an order.

The statute

Citation: La. Act 751 of 2026 (S.B. 254), effective 1 August 2026

We have not reproduced operative text here because we could not confirm a clean verbatim quote against the official source. Follow the citation and the source links below.

How much you can charge

Louisiana sets no cap on credit card surcharges; the debit prohibition is the state-law constraint. No state cap. The binding limits are the card networks: Visa caps a credit card surcharge at the lower of your merchant discount rate or 3% (reduced from 4% effective 15 April 2023) and Mastercard caps it at 4%. Surcharging debit cards is prohibited nationwide.

Disclosure requirements

The critical control in Louisiana is card-type detection: your checkout must not apply the fee to debit cards, including debit run as credit. Debit surcharging is separately prohibited nationwide.

Not legal advice

This page is a research summary for merchants, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. Surcharge rules change, they interact with card-network rules and federal law, and they can turn on facts specific to your business. Consult licensed counsel in Louisiana before you implement or change a surcharge.

Putting this into practice on Shopify

Rules like these only help if your checkout can actually enforce them, including on Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.