Payment Processing · Buyer guide
When a customer in a Polish shop pays with a Polish consumer card, the bank that issued it can earn no more than 0.2% of the sale on debit and 0.3% on credit, the caps set by the EU's Interchange Fee Regulation. The shop pays a good deal more than that. On the card readers a small business can order online, a domestic consumer card costs between 0.79% and 1.69% of the sale in October 2026, plus at some providers a fixed fee of 0.10 zł to 0.50 zł or a monthly plan. Online, the providers charge about 1% to 3% plus a fixed fee of up to 1.35 zł, and BLIK, the bank-app payment widely used for Polish online shopping, usually costs about the same as a card.
This guide sets out what each provider publishes, read from its own Polish pages on 17 October 2026, puts the rates on one basis, and explains three things that matter in Poland: BLIK, the free-terminal programme that is still taking applications, and the law on surcharges and cash.
For a domestic consumer card in person, the providers that publish a Polish price list charge:
Poland's banks and acquirers sell terminals as well, through Polskie ePłatności (part of the Nexi group), PolCard from Fiserv, eService (owned by PKO Bank Polski and Global Payments), Worldline and Elavon. None publishes a full card tariff, only "from" prices such as PolCard's "from 0.99%" online. What they publish is their free-terminal offer under Polska Bezgotówkowa, below, and after that the rate is a quote.
BLIK lets a customer pay by typing a six-digit code from their banking app, or by tapping a phone. It is run by Polski Standard Płatności, owned by six Polish banks and Mastercard, and BLIK says it accounts for more than 70% of transactions in Polish e-commerce; that figure is BLIK's own and we have not seen it independently measured. In September 2026 BLIK announced that it had joined Stripe's dynamic payment methods, which lets Stripe merchants in more than 30 countries show it to Polish shoppers automatically, without a separate integration.
In store, Viva is the only card-terminal provider we found that publishes a BLIK price beside its card price, and the gap is large: 0.39% + 0.09 zł for BLIK against 1.69% for a domestic consumer card. Tpay's phone app TpayGO, where the customer pays by scanning a QR code, charges 0.99% + 0.39 zł for BLIK and cards alike. Worldline and eService say their terminals accept BLIK but publish no price, and SumUp, myPOS and Revolut do not list it at all.
Online the picture is different. Most providers price BLIK at about the same rate as a card, give or take a few groszy:
So BLIK is worth offering online mainly because customers expect it; only at Viva and, on smaller orders, Mollie does it clearly cost less than a card. In store, at the one card-terminal provider that prices both, it costs about a third as much as a card on a 50 zł sale.
Take a café taking 40,000 zł a month in person, 800 sales of 50 zł, all on Polish consumer cards. On the published rates, counting the monthly plan where acceptance requires one:
SumUp's plan pays for itself once standard Polish card sales pass about 12,700 zł a month, since it saves 0.70 points on each; SumUp's own guide puts the point at 16,400 zł, and it rises the more premium, foreign or business cards you take, which stay at 1.49%. Revolut's 0.10 zł fixed fee costs more on small tickets: on a 50 zł sale it adds 0.2 points, and myPOS's 0.20 zł adds 0.4. If the same café took half its sales by BLIK at Viva, its bill there would fall from 676 zł to about 452 zł.
Now take a shop selling 45,000 zł a month online, 300 orders of 150 zł, on domestic consumer cards:
The fixed fee does most of the reordering. On a 150 zł order, a 1 zł fee is two-thirds of a point, which is why Revolut's 1% lands behind Przelewy24's 1.29%. A shop with larger orders, or one that takes most payments by BLIK, should rerun the sums on its own mix.
Polska Bezgotówkowa is not a government scheme. It is run by the Polska Bezgotówkowa foundation for the acquirers, card issuers, Visa and Mastercard, with the Polish Bank Association and the Ministry of Finance, which sits on the foundation's board, taking part, and it is still enrolling: its current operating rules took effect on 1 September 2026. A business that has had no card terminal, and no contract with an acquirer, for the previous 12 months can get one terminal and one phone terminal from a single acquirer with no installation or usage costs for 12 months, or until it has taken 100,000 zł on the terminal, whichever comes first. Online, the programme covers card processing for 12 months or up to 50,000 zł. The foundation says more than 480,000 businesses have joined.
The catch is what happens next. The rules say the acquirer may propose other terms after the free year, and none of the acquirers publishes its standard rate. Worldline's offer, for example, waives the terminal and processing for 12 months or up to 100,000 zł; eService's charges 1 zł a month for the terminal for a further 18 months, with commission rates it does not state. Before you sign, ask for the rate you will pay in month 13, in writing, and how long the contract runs.
A Polish business cannot charge a customer extra for paying with a consumer card. Article 37a of the Payment Services Act forbids a merchant from charging for any payment instrument whose interchange is capped by the EU regulation, which covers consumer Visa and Mastercard cards. A surcharge is lawful only on instruments outside those caps, such as business cards and American Express cards issued by American Express itself rather than through a bank or co-brand partner, and must not exceed the merchant's direct cost. The consumer protection office UOKiK's consumer pages still describe a card fee up to the merchant's cost as allowed without that distinction; the statute is the rule to follow. For how this compares with the US, see the site's guide to card surcharge rules.
Cash runs the other way. Since 5 November 2021 a business may not refuse a consumer's cash or insist on payment by card, except online, at unstaffed points of sale, at mass events where the event rules say so, and on a single payment at or above the average wage published by the statistics office. Under the same article it may not charge for accepting cash or set a different price depending on how the customer pays. The law sets no penalty for breaking it, and we found none elsewhere.
And since 1 January 2022, every business that has to record its sales on a cash register must let customers pay with a payment instrument wherever it trades, under article 19a of the Entrepreneurs' Law. The law sets no penalty for that either, and a payment instrument includes more than a card terminal, so BLIK or a payment link arguably meets it. Payment services themselves are exempt from VAT in Poland, while terminals and hardware carry 23%.
A foreign business selling to Polish consumers needs BLIK and, ideally, Przelewy24. Stripe offers both, and its rates for a non-Polish account are on that country's pricing page. Mollie lists BLIK at 1.30% + 0.50 zł and Przelewy24 at 1.90% + 1 zł. Adyen (A-) lists BLIK at USD 0.13 + 1.5% on its global price list. For the equivalent guide to Germany, see the site's article on German card payment fees.
Once you are trading, check what you pay against what you were quoted. The site's guide to reading a merchant processing statement is written for US statements, but the lines to check are the same: the rate, the fixed fees and anything charged by the month.
