How to Take Card Payments for Free
You cannot take card payments completely free in the UK, because every card transaction carries a processing fee, but you can get everything else to zero. Pay-as-you-go providers charge no monthly fee, no contract and no PCI fees: SumUp charges 1.69% per in-person payment, Square 1.75%, Zettle 1.75%. Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android removes even the hardware cost, turning your phone into the card machine. The only genuinely fee-free way to be paid is a plain bank transfer.
What this means for your business
The card networks price every transaction: interchange to the card issuer, scheme fees to Visa or Mastercard, and the acquirer's margin. No provider can waive those, so "free card payments" as usually searched does not exist. What does exist is stripping out every other cost. A pay-as-you-go account has no monthly fee, no contract, no minimum service charge and no PCI charge, so a quiet month costs you nothing at all. You pay only when you sell.
The hardware can be free too. Tap to Pay on iPhone and Tap to Pay on Android let a compatible phone accept contactless cards directly through providers like SumUp, Square and Zettle, at the same pay-as-you-go rates with no reader to buy. If you want a dedicated device, entry hardware starts low: PayPal's Zettle reader is from £29 excluding VAT for new business users on July 2026 pricing.
One thing you cannot do is pass the fee on: adding a surcharge for consumer debit or credit cards has been banned in the UK since January 2018 under the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations. You can price the cost into your products, offer a bank-transfer option, or use pay-by-bank rails (open banking) where fees run lower than cards, but you cannot bolt the card fee onto a consumer's bill at checkout.
Key points
- Per-transaction card fees are unavoidable; every other cost (monthly, contract, hardware, PCI) can be zero
- Pay-as-you-go rates on July 2026 published pricing: SumUp 1.69%, Square 1.75%, Zettle 1.75% in person
- Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android removes the hardware cost entirely
- Surcharging UK consumer cards has been banned since January 2018, so you cannot pass the fee on at checkout
- Pay-by-bank (open banking) runs cheaper than cards; a plain bank transfer is the only truly free way to be paid
- A £0-monthly setup costs nothing in months where you sell nothing
Common pitfalls
- Signing a "free terminal" deal that buries the cost in an 18-month contract with a monthly service charge, the opposite of free
- Comparing only the headline rate and missing fixed pence fees, which sting on small transactions
- Adding a card surcharge for consumers, which breaches the 2018 surcharge ban
- Assuming zero-cost acceptance matters more than rate: past a few thousand pounds a month, a lower paid rate beats a free setup
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Open quote form →Related questions
Is there any provider with 0% card fees?
Not on card rails. Offers that look like 0% are either introductory periods, cross-subsidised bundles, or bank-payment products rather than card acceptance. Open-banking pay-by-bank payments can undercut card fees substantially (GoCardless charges 1% + 20p capped at £4 on published pricing), but they are bank transfers, not card payments.
What is the cheapest way to take card payments occasionally?
Tap to Pay on your existing phone at a pay-as-you-go rate. No hardware, no monthly fee, and the 1.69% to 1.75% only bites when you actually sell. For a one-off event, that beats hiring a terminal or signing anything.
Founder & Managing Director, Muswell Rose, MerchantHQ
Adam is the founder and managing director of Muswell Rose and a founder of Best Business Loans Ltd, the company behind MerchantHQ. His career runs through insurance, mortgages, commercial finance and fintech lending, including payments and merchant services. He writes the MerchantHQ library.
Last reviewed: 14 July 2026