How much you can charge
No statutory cap. The Attorney General has pointed to typical actual processing cost as the reasonable ceiling. Card-network ceilings (Visa 3%, Mastercard 4%) apply.
Disclosure requirements
Display the full price for each payment method rather than advertising a low price and adding the card fee later. Do not relabel a surcharge as a cash discount if the mechanics are a fee added at checkout.
Sources
- Tennessee Attorney General: warning against deceptive credit card surcharges
- NFIB Legal Center: Credit Card Surcharge and Cash Discount Laws Guide (2025)
- ArentFox Schiff: Visa reduces its merchant surcharge cap to 3%, effective April 15, 2023
Last verified: 2026-08-25. Confidence: verified against the sources above.
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 Tennessee 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.