Countries where Credit Card surcharges are applied
 

A posterr on the Andrews FCU thread brought up a trip to Australia and made the point there are many many (if not a majority) places where surcharges are applied on visa cards.

Are there any other countries which apply this very absurd policy that people know of?

I think you're referring to my post, which I've now clarified. The 1% fee to which I was referring was the fee charged by Visa to American cardholders making purchases in currencies other than USD. There are a few Visa cards that don't charge this and more than a few where the bank gets an additional 2% for doing exactly nothing. AmEx gets 3% except plat/cent where there is no forex fee.

As far as merchant surcharges in Oz go, I'd say surcharges are rare and generally applied only to AmEx and Diners. It seems like the chain stores take all cards for free and the majority of small businesses take MC/Visa for free and don't take AmEx or Diners at all. No one but the airlines here has charged me to use Visa. A few places (hotels, restaurants and the Tasmanian Hertz affiliate) have wanted 3% on AmEx, so I just paid with Visa. A couple places in Indonesia did the same.

Surcharges weren't rare last time I was in Europe, and I think they're only specifically prohibited by the merchant agreement in the USA (which may be changing according to a recent WSJ article)

Thanks for the clarification; however about two or three years ago, I read that a law was passed in Australia authorizing surcharges and that many merchants were charging 2.5% on credit card purchases.

Of course recently in our country, for reasons I still don't understand, in the Durbin banking bill, they allowed him to put in clauses allowing minimum purchase limits by merchants and allowing credit card surcharges....

Surcharges are permitted in the UK. Our local car company (minicab) adds 10% for payment by card.

In Switzerland, it's legal to charge extra for credit card usage.

Most shops/restaurants don't charge extra, but especially those with thin margins, like electronic stores, do charge extra. For example, digitec.ch, one of the biggest electronic retailers, do charge between 2 and 4% extra, depending on which card you're using (Visa, MC, Amex, Diners) - they say it's exactly what they need to pay to the vendor for accepting the cards.

We charge extra for a credit card payment. Most of our customers are German and they seem happier with bank transfers. If we factored the cost of card payments into our quotes we would lose competitive advantage for those that have no intention of paying with a credit card.

Surcharges are widespread in Denmark.