Industry · Payment Processing
France publishes no figure for what its shops pay to take a card. Spain's central bank prints an average every quarter; when a French deputy asked the government in February 2026 how it would stop card fees rising, the economy ministry replied in April that prices are freely set between each business and its provider, and pointed to the annual statement of card fees every merchant is owed. So the only way to know what a French business pays is to read the price lists. As read on 15 October 2026, the card reader and online providers that publish one charge a French business between 0.79% (myPOS, on a €39-a-month plan) and 1.75% (SumUp and PayPal, with no monthly fee) on a European consumer card taken in person.
This guide sets out what each provider charges, what a typical sale costs at each, what the big banks publish (mostly terminal rental, rarely a rate), where Wero stands, and the rules every French business has to follow: surcharging is banned for every payment method, a shop can refuse cards but must say so, and refusing cash is an offence.
Interchange is the part of every card fee that goes to the customer's bank. The EU's Interchange Fee Regulation caps it at 0.2% of the payment on consumer debit cards and 0.3% on consumer credit cards. Member states may set lower caps for domestic payments. France has not: the Code monétaire et financier only sets the fines for breaking the EU rules. Business cards fall outside the caps, and so do three-party schemes such as American Express.
So on a €100 debit card payment the customer's bank can take at most 20 cents. Everything a small merchant pays above that is the card schemes' own fees and the provider's margin, which is why the cheapest and dearest published rates are several times the interchange apart.
Most French cards are co-badged with Cartes Bancaires, the domestic scheme, and Visa or Mastercard. Stripe's documentation puts the share of CB cards that also carry Visa or Mastercard at more than 95%. Under the same EU regulation, a merchant may set which network its terminal uses by default, but the customer can always override that choice. That matters because some providers price CB differently: Mollie charges 1.20% + €0.25 online on a CB consumer card against 1.80% + €0.25 on other European consumer cards, and Stripe charges no dispute fee on a CB payment, though a merchant cannot contest a CB dispute.
All rates below are for European consumer cards and were read on each provider's French pricing page on 15 October 2026. Payment fees are generally exempt from VAT; hardware prices are shown before VAT (HT).
Adyen prices on interchange plus a margin, at €0.11 plus interchange and scheme fees plus 0.60% for cards including CB, with no monthly fee but a minimum invoice that depends on the sector. It suits larger businesses. Worldline, the Paris-headquartered acquirer and processor, publishes no French merchant price list. Teya, Dojo and Unzer do not sell in France.
Paid in person with a French consumer card, a €100 sale costs 79 cents on myPOS Pro, 82 cents at Revolut, 89 cents on myPOS Plus or SumUp Paiements Plus, 95 cents on Mollie Pro, €1.20 on Mollie's free plan and on PayPlug Pro, €1.50 at Stripe, €1.60 on PayPlug Starter, €1.65 at Square, €1.69 at Viva and on myPOS One, and €1.75 at SumUp and PayPal POS. Of each, at most 20 cents on a debit card and 30 cents on a credit card is interchange.
A monthly plan pays for itself at modest volume. SumUp's Paiements Plus saves 0.86 points, so its €19 fee is covered once a shop takes about €2,200 a month in person on European consumer cards; SumUp itself pitches the plan from €2,600 a month. myPOS Plus saves 0.80 points on the One plan and pays off at about €2,400 a month. PayPlug Pro costs €20 a month more than Starter and saves 0.4 points, so it pays off from about €5,000 a month.
Online, a €100 payment on a French consumer card costs €1.20 at Revolut, €1.35 on PayPlug Pro, €1.39 on myPOS Pro, €1.45 at Mollie on a CB card, €1.54 on myPOS Plus, €1.55 on a PayPal guest checkout, €1.65 at Square, €1.75 at Stripe and on PayPlug Starter, €2.37 at Viva, €2.39 on myPOS One, €2.50 at SumUp, and €3.25 if the customer pays from a PayPal wallet.
France's big banks almost never publish a card commission. Société Générale's 2026 tariff says "étude personnalisée"; Crédit Mutuel, Caisse d'Epargne, La Banque Postale and BNP Paribas say to ask. None of them is a provider we have reviewed, so treat what follows as a benchmark. What the banks do publish is terminal rental, and it usually comes with a long commitment:
A bank's rate on a rented terminal is negotiable and may beat any of the providers above for a business with real volume. But a 48-month rental outlives most reasons for switching, so read the term before you sign.
Every French payment provider must send its business customers, in the first quarter of each year, a separate statement totalling the fees it charged for card payments over the year, broken down by service. It is called the RAFEC (récapitulatif annuel des frais d'encaissement par carte) and is required by article L.112-11 of the Code monétaire et financier. Société Générale lists it as free, along with a monthly version. It is the closest thing France has to the average Spain publishes, but only for your own account. Divide its total by your card takings for the year and you have your effective rate, which is the number to put against the price lists above. Our guide to reading a merchant processing statement explains the line items.
Article L.112-12 of the Code monétaire et financier says a payee may not apply charges for the use of a given payment instrument. It covers every instrument, not only consumer cards, so a French business cannot add a fee for Amex, a business card or any other way of paying. The law allows exceptions only by decree, and none has been made. A business that breaks the rule faces a fine of up to €75,000, or €375,000 for a company. Offering a discount for a preferred payment method is allowed, as long as the customer is told before paying.
A French shop does not have to take cards at all. The government's public service site says a merchant can refuse cards, accept only some, or set a minimum amount for paying by card, provided this is displayed in the shop. Taxis are the exception: the transport code lets a passenger pay by card for any fare.
Cash is different. A merchant who refuses a cash payment risks a fine of up to €150. There are exceptions: a merchant may refuse a counterfeit note, a payment of more than 50 coins, or a customer who cannot give the exact amount, since French law puts the onus on the payer to have the right money. Cash also has a ceiling. A payment of more than €1,000 cannot be made in cash where the payer is tax-resident in France or is paying for business purposes, rising to €10,000 for a private customer who can show they live abroad, or €15,000 when the seller is itself bound by anti-money-laundering rules, such as an art or antiques dealer. The fine is up to 5% of the amount paid, and the payer and the business that took the cash are jointly liable for it.
Wero is the account-to-account payment service run by the European Payments Initiative, a company owned by European banks and payment service providers. It moves money by SEPA instant transfer, so there is no card network behind it. In September 2026 BNP Paribas said, in a release EPI published, that every BNP Paribas retail customer in France could pay with Wero online, that Orange's Sosh had taken it since 2 September, and that Air France, Decathlon and Fnac Darty were preparing to launch it. On payment in shops, EPI said in September that broader availability in France and Germany is planned progressively from 2027, and its October release also points to an in-store rollout in 2027.
Wero publishes no merchant price; businesses sign up through their acquirer. Mollie lists Wero outside the Netherlands and Belgium at 0.90% + €0.25, and PayPlug quotes on request. Our guide to iDEAL's move to Wero covers the Dutch side of the same switch.
The Banque de France's payment security observatory reported in September 2026 that fraud on French-issued cards fell to 0.047% of the value of payments in 2025, the lowest level it has recorded. Fraud in person was 0.011% and online 0.124%. Fraud on mail and telephone orders rose, to 0.322%. Contactless accounted for 72% of in-person card payments and mobile phones for more than 19%. For a merchant, the online figure is the one to watch: a disputed online payment is usually the merchant's loss, while a chip-and-PIN or contactless payment in person rarely is.
For comparison with France's neighbours, see what card payments cost in Spain, Germany and the UK.
