# Tax office to refuse credit cards as levy and rent platforms drop them
The ATO will stop taking credit cards after 30 November. Since 1 October, body corporate levies and rent paid through several platforms can no longer go on a card.
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The Australian Taxation Office will stop accepting credit cards as a way to pay tax after Monday 30 November 2026. It confirmed the date in a notice updated on 1 October, the day a national ban on card surcharges took effect, and a meeting with business groups on Wednesday 7 October ended without a change of position, the ABC reported.
The tax office is the most prominent biller to make the move and not the first. Since 1 October, several of the platforms that property owners and tenants use to pay body corporate levies and rent have removed card payments altogether, or left the choice, and the cost, to each scheme. The Queensland Revenue Office has gone the other way: it still takes cards for land tax and transfer duty and no longer adds a surcharge.
30 Novlast day the ATO accepts a credit card
$200ma year in merchant fees, the ATO's estimate
2.3%of ATO collections paid by credit card
Sources: ATO notice updated 1 October 2026 and Commissioner's statement of 2 October 2026. The merchant fee figure is the ATO's estimate of "almost $200 million annually". The card share is for 2024-25.
## What the tax office has decided
Until 30 September, a taxpayer who paid the ATO by card paid a surcharge that covered the cost of the transaction. From 1 October that surcharge could no longer be charged, and the ATO stopped passing it on. It will keep accepting credit cards for a two-month transition period and then stop.
The reason given is cost. In a statement on 2 October, the Commissioner of Taxation, Rob Heferen, said the merchant fees on credit card payments were estimated at almost $200 million a year, and that the ATO had asked card companies for a lower rate and been refused. "It is not tenable for the ATO to absorb the costs associated with accepting credit cards on an ongoing basis," he said. The ATO's notice puts the principle more simply: as a government agency, it does not think the cost of merchant fees should be transferred to the community.
The ATO says the vast majority of taxpayers will not notice. About 2.3 per cent of its collections came by credit card in 2024-25. More than 60 per cent of those card payments, by value, were made by what it calls privately owned and wealthy groups and by public and multinational businesses. About 5 per cent of small businesses used a credit card to pay tax that year, and just over 2 per cent of individual taxpayers.
Other ways to pay stay open. The Commissioner's statement lists debit card, BPAY, direct deposit, Australia Post and international money remitters.
## The rule behind it
The trigger is a decision of the Reserve Bank of Australia, which regulates card payment systems. In conclusions published on 31 March 2026 after a review of merchant card payment costs and surcharging, the Bank decided that surcharges on debit, prepaid and credit card payments made through the designated card networks would be banned from 1 October 2026. Caps on the interchange fees that banks charge each other on domestic card transactions were lowered from the same date.
The Bank's case, as the ABC summarised it, was that ending surcharges was in the public interest and would save cardholders about $1.6 billion a year. The saving for the person paying is the other side of a cost for the business being paid. A biller that used to recover the fee on each card payment now has three choices: absorb it, spread it across all customers in its prices, or stop taking the cards that cost the most.
Three dates in the change
1 October 2026Card surcharges are banned and interchange caps fall. The ATO and others stop adding a surcharge.
30 October 2026Card schemes and large payment providers must start publishing average merchant fees each quarter.
30 November 2026Last day the ATO accepts a credit card. Card payments attempted afterwards will fail.
## Levies and rent: who has stopped taking cards
For property owners and tenants, the change arrived on 1 October through the payment platforms their managers use.
DEFT, the payment system run by Macquarie Bank and widely used by strata managers and real estate agencies to collect levies and rent, stopped accepting both credit and debit cards on 1 October, including recurring payments set up on a card. The comparison site Finder, which reported the decision in August, listed the fees payers had been charged until then: 0.40 per cent on debit cards, 1.20 per cent on local Mastercard credit cards and 1.50 per cent on local Visa credit cards and American Express. On a rent of $700 a week, Finder calculated, the 1.50 per cent fee came to $10.50 a week, or about $546 a year.
StrataPay took a different route. From 1 October it can no longer charge card costs to the owner making the payment, the strata manager PICA Group told its clients in August. Card payments continue only where the body corporate has decided at a general meeting to accept them, in which case the processing cost becomes an expense of the scheme, shared by all owners through their levies. Where no such decision was recorded, card payments and card-funded direct debits ended.
RentMate, a rent payment service, also ended card payments on 1 October, Finder reported on 5 October, leaving tenants to use BPAY or a direct debit.
Card payments after 1 October, biller by biller
Paid to
What is paid
Cards now
Australian Taxation Office
Federal taxes
Credit cards until 30 November, then none
Queensland Revenue Office
Land tax, transfer duty
Accepted, no surcharge
DEFT
Levies, rent
No credit or debit cards
StrataPay
Body corporate levies
Only if the scheme voted to accept them
RentMate
Rent
No cards
Sources: ATO, 1 and 2 October 2026; Queensland Revenue Office announcement of 16 September 2026; Finder, 19 August and 5 October 2026; PICA Group, 10 August 2026.
One body corporate manager, SSKB, told owners in August that card payments would not be available for the schemes it manages from 1 October, because the schemes' accounts are held with Macquarie, and that any card payment scheduled for that date or later would be cancelled automatically. It pointed owners to PayID, BPAY, direct debit from a bank account and payment at Australia Post.
## Queensland's revenue office keeps cards
State taxes are a separate matter. The Queensland Revenue Office announced on 16 September that it would stop adding a surcharge to card payments from 1 October, and it did not withdraw cards as a payment method. The change covers State taxes, duties and royalties, which for property owners means land tax and transfer duty.
So an owner with a 2026-27 land tax assessment can still pay it by credit card, now without the extra charge, while the same owner's federal tax bill will have to be paid another way from December. Council rates are different again: each council sets its own payment arrangements, and a ratepayer should check the options printed on the rates notice.
## Why builders and small businesses object
The objection from business groups is about timing, not fees. A credit card lets a business pay a tax bill on the due date and settle the card weeks later, when its own customers have paid. Take that away, the groups argue, and a business with money owed to it but not yet received has fewer ways to avoid falling behind with the tax office.
Housing industry bodies have been among the loudest. The chief executive of Master Builders Australia, Denita Wawn, said the decision had been made without consultation, the ABC reported. The Housing Industry Association called on 8 October for the decision to be reversed. "Removing payment flexibility does not reduce a business's tax obligations," said Simon Croft, the association's chief executive for industry and policy. He noted that small and medium-sized builders construct most of Australia's new homes.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and the Australian Retail Council have made similar points. After the meeting of 7 October, a spokesperson for the chamber told the ABC the ATO had indicated it would not reverse the decision and that the chamber would keep seeking to have it overturned.
## What property owners should check
The practical risk is a payment that silently stops working.
Check this first
A payment plan or direct debit linked to a credit card will fail
The ATO says payments attempted by credit card after 30 November will fail, and that a payment plan funded that way may fall into arrears or default. It is writing to taxpayers who need to change their method. The same logic applies to levies and rent: a recurring card payment cancelled on 1 October does not restart by itself.
For landlords, the ATO change touches the tax on rental income and any instalments paid during the year. For builders and developers, it touches the regular payments of GST and tax withheld from wages. In each case the amount owed is unchanged; only the way of paying it is narrower.
For owners in a body corporate, the question is whether the scheme took a decision on cards before 1 October, and what replaced a card payment if it did not. A levy that goes unpaid because an old arrangement lapsed can attract interest and recovery costs under the scheme's ordinary rules, as PICA Group reminded owners. Tenants whose rent was on a card should confirm with their property manager that the replacement payment has gone through.
## What comes next
From 30 October, card schemes and large payment providers must begin publishing the average fees they charge merchants each quarter, under the Reserve Bank's decision. That will show for the first time, in public, what accepting a card costs, which is the figure at the centre of the ATO's argument.
The ATO's deadline is 30 November. Business groups have said they will keep pressing for a reversal, and the Opposition has asked the Government to direct the ATO to change course, the ABC reported. Unless that happens, December's tax payments will be the first that cannot go on a credit card.