Payment Processing · Buyer guide
Peru does not cap what a shop pays to take a card. Instead, under a central bank (BCRP) regulation in force since January 2023, card networks must publish their domestic interchange rates, and acquirers and payment facilitators their merchant discount rates, by type of business and type of card, with the maximum, minimum and average for each. Your statement must also show the discount rate and every other charge on each transaction.
That makes Peru one of the easier markets in which to check a quote. Here is what the published rates show, read from the providers' own Peruvian pages on 30 October 2026, and the rules on surcharges and cash that Indecopi, the consumer agency, restated this month. Most prices below are before IGV, the 18% sales tax, so a 3.39% fee costs you 4.00% once IGV is added. We say where a provider quotes otherwise.
The central bank's March 2026 payment systems report gives the averages for December 2025, excluding financial, government and public-service merchants. Interchange, the part that goes to the card issuer, averaged 1.52% on Visa and Mastercard: 1.30% on debit and 1.86% on credit. Including interchange, merchants that contract directly with an acquirer paid an average discount rate of 2.10%, and those signed up through a payment facilitator paid 2.84%. Micro-merchants paid acquirers 2.24% and facilitators 2.85%. The report does not say whether these figures include IGV.
Many small businesses sign up through a facilitator, because that is how the app-based card readers and online checkouts work. The averages tell you what a negotiated contract with an acquirer can save once your volume justifies one.
We found no Peruvian rate for Mercado Pago's Point card readers: its Peruvian Point page no longer exists. Kushki (B-), which says it holds Visa and Mastercard acquiring membership in Peru, quotes per account with a default minimum of US$1,000 a month in fees, and was reported in December 2025 to be adding in-person acquiring in Peru in 2026.
Take a shop with 200 card payments a month of S/50 each: S/10,000 of takings. On the published rates, including IGV where the provider adds it:
Most of the published rates sit within a tenth of a point of each other, so the real differences are IGV, terminal cost and payout speed. Izipay's app rate is the exception, but it needs an Android phone with NFC and applies only on that product. Against the central bank's averages, the list prices are a starting point: a shop paying 3.44% + IGV is paying over a point more than the average merchant contracted with an acquirer.
Peru's wallets are interoperable. Under the central bank's interoperability programme, Yape and Plin users have been able to pay each other since March 2023, and bank apps and QR codes joined from September 2023; by December 2025 these payments ran at more than 263 million a month. Yape belongs to BCP, part of Credicorp, which reported 15.9 million monthly active Yape users at the end of 2025. Plin runs inside the apps of BBVA, Interbank, Scotiabank, BanBif and several municipal savings banks (cajas).
For a small shop, a free Plin collection to its own bank account is the cheapest way to be paid digitally, as long as the customer's app can reach it. The central bank is also building a retail payments platform with NPCI, the operator of India's UPI, and as of March 2026 planned a pilot with 14 entities in December 2026.
For a business abroad selling into Peru, dLocal (B-) lists 2.99% on Peruvian cards for its self-serve dLocal Go product, plus 18% local tax on the fee, in a price list posted in 2024. EBANX (B-) collects in Peru on negotiated pricing. In 2025 Indecopi's competition commission fined Visa 202.92 UIT (about S/1.09 million) for refusing to let payment facilitators sign up foreign merchants, after complaints from EBANX and dLocal; the decision could be appealed.
Article 7.1 of the Consumer Protection and Defence Code, Law 29571, lets a business charge a different price depending on the payment method, such as a credit card, provided it displays that information prominently, visibly and accessibly in the shop, through signs or notices. If it does not, customers cannot be made to pay the extra. During offers and discounts, any payment method may be used unless restrictions were disclosed beforehand.
There is no percentage cap. Indecopi's view, as reported on 29 October 2026, is that the commonly cited 5% is not a limit, and that the surcharge must be disclosed clearly, visibly and in good time before the purchase. Fines under the code can reach 450 UIT, about S/2.5 million at the 2026 UIT of S/5,500, though fines on micro and small businesses are generally capped at 10% and 20% of the previous year's sales.
Indecopi warned businesses on 14 October 2026 that notes and coins issued by the central bank must be accepted under article 43 of its organic law. A business may refuse them only for a justified reason, such as a suspected forgery, a badly damaged note or a withdrawn currency; a blanket refusal of S/200 notes does not qualify. We found no rule requiring a business to accept cards or digital payments.
A new general regulation of the national payment system took effect on 1 April 2026, after Legislative Decree 1665 amended the payments law. It creates a new category of payment services entity, which must register, or be authorised to join a payment system, and in the central bank's words incorporates guidelines on fees; the central bank's summary describes no cap on what a merchant pays.
For the rest of Latin America, see our guides to card fees in Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
