Payment Processing · Buyer guide
Cards moved R$4.5 trillion in Brazil in 2025, 10.1% more than the year before, across 48.1 billion transactions, according to ABECS, the card industry association. Credit grew fastest, by 14.5% to R$3.1 trillion, while debit was flat at R$1 trillion. And credit in Brazil means instalments: ABECS counts 42.6% of the value spent on credit (and prepaid) cards as parcelado sem juros, purchases split into interest-free monthly payments. By value, 64.2% of that instalment spending is split into six instalments or fewer.
That is why the price of a card machine, or maquininha, is never one number. Each provider charges a different percentage for debit, for one-off credit (crédito à vista) and for each number of instalments, and changes that percentage again depending on how soon you want the money. Pix, the central bank's instant payment system, now competes with all of it; our guide to what Pix costs a merchant covers that side. This one covers cards: what each provider's own Brazilian rate table says, read on 25 October 2026, what instalments really cost, and the rules on interchange and price differences. All rates below are for Visa and Mastercard unless stated; Elo and American Express cost more at Ton and PagBank; Mercado Pago charges the same rate on every card brand.
Every large provider leads with a rate under 1%. Ton advertises debit and credit at 0.57%, PagBank's Super Max plan 0.58%, and Mercado Pago's Point machines 0.74%. Read the small print and each is an introductory offer: valid for 30 days or until you have sold R$5,000, whichever comes first. Ton's plan regulation and the PagBank and Mercado Pago rate tables all say so in nearly the same words. PagBank, Mercado Pago and Stone were all running Black Friday campaigns when we checked. PagBank's Essencial plan and its Tap On app end the offer sooner, at R$1,500 of sales.
A shop selling R$20,000 a month on cards uses up a R$5,000 allowance in its first week. What matters is the table that applies afterwards, so that is the one compared below.
Three of the large providers publish full Brazilian rate tables: Ton, from the Stone group, and PagBank and Mercado Pago, both reviewed on this site. In each case the rate falls as monthly card sales rise.
On a R$100 debit sale, then, a shop pays between R$1.14 and R$2.39 depending on provider, plan and volume. On a R$100 one-off credit sale it pays R$2.81 to R$4.99. On debit, most of that is not interchange, as the rules section below shows.
The Stone brand itself publishes no full rate table for its machines. Its sign-up page advertises, as a Black Friday offer, debit from 0.74% and credit from 2.99%, with conditions agreed through its sales team. Its tap-on-phone app, TapStone, lists 0.87% on debit and 1.90% on crédito à vista. PagBank's Tap On, which turns a phone into the machine, charges 0.88% on debit, 3.14% on one-off credit and 13.74% on 12 instalments. SumUp still operates in Brazil through a local payment institution and offers 0% for the first 30 days, but we could not read its standard Brazilian rates.
PagBank publishes a second, older-style table on its rates and fees page that disagrees with its plans page. It lists debit at 1.99% paid same day, and crédito à vista at 4.99% same day, 3.99% at 14 days or 3.19% at 30 days, with instalment sales at 5.59%, 4.59% or 3.79% on the same terms, plus a separate instalment fee that rises with the number of instalments. PagBank's own Minizinha NFC 2 product page quotes the 1.99% debit rate from this table, so ask which list your account is on before you compare.
PagBank says its machines carry no rent, monthly fee or joining fee. Its plans page lists the Minizinha NFC 2 at R$15, the Moderninha ProFit at R$83.88 and the Smart 2 at R$196.08, though its product pages show different prices (R$16.68 for the Minizinha NFC 2, R$95.88 for the ProFit), so check the price at checkout. Mercado Pago's discounted prices run from R$25.90 for the Point Mini NFC 2 to R$199.90 for the Point Smart 2, and its Point Tap app is free. Ton lends its machines rather than selling them, for a one-off joining price from R$16.80 for the T1 to R$191.88 for the T3 Smart. Stone's machines are rented, with the rent waived above sales targets.
When a customer pays R$1,200 in 12 interest-free instalments, their bank pays the acquirer one instalment a month. If the shop wants R$1,200 today, someone has to lend it the other eleven months' money. That is antecipação, prepaying receivables, and it is most of what the instalment rates above are charging for.
On a R$1,000 sale in 12 instalments, a shop on Ton's R$10,000 to R$30,000 band keeps R$880.50 the same day. On PagBank's Super Max plan it keeps R$862.20, and on its Essencial plan R$774.10. On Mercado Pago's lowest band it keeps R$796.10 (its table does not state the payout term). A one-off credit sale of the same amount costs the same shop roughly R$30 to R$50.
Providers that let you wait show what the advance costs. InfinitePay, a provider this site has not reviewed, sells a plan without automatic antecipação, where credit sales are paid from 30 days. For shops selling more than R$80,000 a month, 12 instalments cost 2.25% on that plan, against 8.99% when the whole sale is paid the next business day. The difference, 6.74 points, is the price of getting all twelve instalments at once.
None of the three reviewed providers' plan tables shows a separate monthly antecipação rate; the instalment prices already include it. If you sell a lot in instalments, compare the all-in instalment rate at your volume, not the headline debit rate. Our explainer on instant payout fees shows how to turn a fee for faster money into an annual rate.
The Banco Central do Brasil caps interchange, the share of each sale that goes to the bank that issued the card, on debit and prepaid cards only. Resolution 246 of 2022, in force since 1 April 2023, sets a maximum of 0.5% on any debit transaction and 0.7% on any prepaid one. It also bars a card scheme from setting different maximum settlement times for merchants between its debit and prepaid arrangements. Credit card interchange is not capped. A central bank director said in May 2025 that the bank would consult on limits for credit interchange, according to the trade publication Finsiders; we found no cap in force in October 2026.
So on a debit sale charged at 1.44%, at most 0.5 of a point goes to the card issuer. The rest is the card scheme's fee and the provider's own margin, which is why debit rates differ so much between plans that face the same cap.
Brazilian law lets a shop charge different prices by payment method. Law 13.455 of 2017 authorises price differences according to the payment instrument or the payment term, and makes void any contract or scheme clause that forbids or restricts them. The same law added a rule to Law 10.962 of 2004 requiring shops to show any discount offered for a payment method or term in a visible place and format. So a lower price for Pix or cash is legal, and so is a higher price for a card sale in 12 instalments.
Remote card sales, from online checkout to payment links, made up R$1.1 trillion of card spending in 2025, ABECS says. They are priced higher than machine sales and paid more slowly:
For a seller outside Brazil, the cross-border options are covered in our Pix guide. If you sell in more than one Latin American market, our guides to card fees in Mexico and Colombia use the same method.
