Industry · Payment Processing
Germany's government wants more of its shops to take something other than cash. On 11 September 2026 dpa reported an outline from the federal finance ministry under which shops, restaurants and service businesses would have to offer at least one digital way to pay, and at least one European payment method among them. The outline has no turnover threshold, would leave non-commercial organisations such as amateur sports clubs and charities free to stay cash-only, and is meant to go to cabinet this year and take effect in 2027. It is a set of principles being circulated to other ministries, not a bill, and it may change.
For a business that takes only cash today, the useful question is what a card costs. This guide sets out what the rules allow a German business to be charged, what the national debit card actually costs, and what card machine providers publish on their German price pages, read on 10 October 2026. It continues our series on card acceptance costs, after the UK, Japan and Mexico.
The Bundesbank's latest payment diary, published on 17 June 2026 and covering autumn 2025, found that 55% of recorded purchases were paid without cash, the first time cashless methods have been in the majority since the survey began in 2008. Cash was still used for 45% of payments, six points fewer than in 2023. Debit cards took 26% of payments and mobile payments 10%. A card or phone payment was possible at 86% of the in-store purchases recorded, up five points, and about a quarter of respondents said that at least once in the previous month they had been unable to pay cashless when they wanted to.
The card most Germans carry is the girocard, the banks' domestic debit scheme. In the Bundesbank survey 90% of respondents with a current account had one. Its operators report 4.21 billion girocard payments worth €151.9 billion in the first half of 2026, an average of €36.12, with around 92% of them contactless in June. The girocard is still almost entirely an in-store card: the Bundesbank's December 2025 Monthly Report says a girocard without a co-badge can be used almost only in shops. Banks now also issue girocards co-badged with Visa Debit or Debit Mastercard, and some give customers a Visa or Mastercard debit card as their standard card instead.
The EU's Interchange Fee Regulation caps the interchange fee, the part of each card payment that goes to the bank that issued the card, at 0.2% of the payment on consumer debit cards and 0.3% on consumer credit cards, for payments where both the card's bank and the merchant's provider are in the EU. Commercial cards are outside the caps, and so are cards issued by three-party schemes such as American Express. Interchange is only part of what a merchant pays: card scheme fees and the provider's own margin come on top, which is why no card machine in this guide charges 0.2%.
The girocard falls under the same 0.2% cap. Guidance the federal finance ministry set out for the financial regulator BaFin in November 2015 says the cap applies to the merchant fee owed to the girocard's issuing bank, and that the network operator's charge for its own services must be shown separately. Since the Federal Cartel Office's decision in 2014 ended a uniform fee of 0.3% with a minimum of 8 cents, that fee has been negotiated between merchants and the card-issuing banks. The girocard scheme's own site says fees are freely negotiable up to 0.2% and usually well below that, without giving a figure.
The Bundesbank's study of what payment methods cost retailers, corrected in December 2025 and based on a survey of 268 retail businesses, gives the averages. Transaction fees came to €0.18 per payment, or 0.2% of sales, for the girocard, against €0.28, or 0.8%, for Visa and Mastercard debit cards and €0.48, or 1.1%, for credit cards. Once terminals and staff time are counted, the study put the full cost of a girocard payment at 0.8% of sales, against 2.3% for cash, 2.1% for international debit cards and 2.4% for credit cards.
Many retailers buy girocard acceptance through a network operator, which passes on the negotiated fee to the issuing bank and bills its own service charge separately, the structure the 2015 guidance describes, at prices agreed per merchant. The providers below publish a price instead, and most charge one rate across the girocard and consumer Visa and Mastercard cards. Rates are for in-person payments on consumer cards issued in Germany or the EEA, as each provider's German price page showed them on 10 October 2026:
PayPal's Zettle card reader, which we have not reviewed, charges 1.39% on all cards.
On a payment of €36.12, the girocard's average in the first half of 2026, the published rates work out at about 29 cents on SumUp's Plus plan or myPOS Pro, 31 cents on a domestic debit card at Viva.com, 41 cents on Mollie Pro, 43 cents at Nexi's promotional rate, 47 cents on myPOS One, 50 cents at SumUp's standard rate, 54 cents on Mollie without a plan and 61 cents at Stripe. The Bundesbank's average for a girocard was 18 cents. Monthly fees come on top: €15 at Nexi, €19 to €39 for the cheaper plans at SumUp and myPOS, and €20 at Mollie.
The plans pay for themselves at modest volumes. SumUp's €19 saves 0.6 points on domestic cards, which covers itself at about €3,200 a month in card sales; SumUp itself pitches the plan at €3,500 a month and up. myPOS Plus covers its fee at €4,750 a month. Mollie Pro, on payments of €36, needs about €5,400 a month. A business below those figures is better off on the plan with no monthly fee.
German law voids any agreement to charge a fee for paying by SEPA transfer or direct debit, and, on payments by consumers, for using a payment card covered by the EU interchange caps (§ 270a of the Civil Code). So a shop cannot add a fee for a girocard or a consumer Visa or Mastercard. Business cards and American Express are outside that ban, but any surcharge on a consumer must not exceed what the payment method actually costs the business, and is only allowed where a common free alternative is offered (§ 312a).
The UK has a similar ban, in force since January 2018, and our guide to UK card machine fees reaches the same conclusion: for a business serving consumers, the card machine's price is a cost to manage, not one to pass on.
