UK Card Processing Fee Index 2026

Edition 1, June 2026. Updated each cycle. Every figure is computed from our Card Acquirer Index.

Published headline card processing rates range from about 0.7% to 6% across the 42 UK acquirers we track, and 43% publish no rate at all, quoting custom or bespoke pricing only. The UK Card Processing Fee Index measures the range of advertised rates, pricing transparency and contract terms across the market, and is updated each cycle. We report rates as a range parsed from published figures, never as a single blended average.

Published UK card processing rates range from about 0.7% to 6% across the 42 acquirers we track, and 43% publish no rate at all.

Headline findings

The panel

The 42 acquirers we track break down across four tiers:

Methodology

Every acquirer in the MerchantHQ Card Acquirer Index is recorded against a common schema: published headline rate, settlement timing, contract length and tier. For this index we report the range of published rates rather than an average, because acquirers quote on different bases (blended, interchange-plus, custom), and we count how many publish a rate at all versus quoting bespoke pricing only. The method is held constant between editions so the readings are comparable, and the edition date reflects the most recent re-audit of the panel.

Download the data

The full indicator table is available as a CSV under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence:

UK Card Processing Fee Index, June 2026 (CSV)

Compiled by Oliver Mackman. Published by MerchantHQ. See also the Card Acquirer Index and our UK card payment statistics.