Payment Processing · Buyer guide
MB WAY turned eleven this month with more than 7 million users and more than 10 million cards linked to it, according to SIBS, the Portuguese company that runs both MB WAY and the Multibanco network. SIBS says one in every five purchases it processed between 1 and 24 December 2025 was paid with MB WAY. For a Portuguese business that means three prices to compare, not one: cards, MB WAY and, online, Multibanco payment references.
Here is what each provider and bank publishes, read from their Portuguese pages and price lists on 22 October 2026, and the rules on surcharges and card acceptance. Prices exclude IVA unless stated.
Portugal applies the EU Interchange Fee Regulation, so the bank that issued a customer's card can charge the merchant's provider no more than 0.2% on a consumer debit card and 0.3% on a consumer credit card. Banco de Portugal's guidance adds that the caps do not apply to company cards or to cards from three-party schemes such as American Express, and that the merchant service charge your provider bills you includes the interchange. Your provider's price list must show the maximum charge.
No provider charges as little as 0.2%. Card scheme fees and the provider's own costs and margin come on top, and most small-business providers fold everything into one flat rate per card type.
We found no Portuguese pricing for Zettle by PayPal, Teya or Adyen, and Revolut's pages would not load for us, so they are left out.
To put the published rates on one basis, take a café that takes €8,000 a month on Portuguese consumer cards in 800 sales of €10. SumUp costs about €120 at its standard rate, or about €79 on the €19 plan. Viva.com comes to about €45 including the minimum plan fee if every payment runs over Multibanco, and about €140 if every payment runs as Visa or Mastercard; a real month falls between the two. myPOS costs about €136 and Stripe about €192, because their fixed fees are 0.5% and 1% of a €10 sale. At Novo Banco the Mastercard debit rate comes to about €120 before terminal rent, while its €57 bundle would cover that volume outright. With fewer, larger sales the fixed fees matter much less.
MB WAY is a phone wallet tied to the customer's bank card. It works online and, at terminals that support it, in shops. Prices vary more than for cards:
A Multibanco reference is the older alternative: the shop issues an entity number and reference, and the customer pays it at an ATM or in their banking app. It suits customers who will not enter a card online. Viva.com charges 0.95% + €0.24 for a reference, Mollie 1.50% + €0.35, ifthenpay and eupago €0.20 + 1.5% plus IVA, and Stripe 2.95% + €0.25.
On a €30 order, MB WAY costs about €0.28 at ifthenpay (€0.34 with IVA), €0.30 at Viva.com and €0.70 at Stripe or Mollie, against a card payment of about €0.70 at Stripe, €0.61 on a Portuguese card at Mollie and €0.59 at myPOS. Through the cheaper gateways MB WAY is the less expensive way to be paid; through the international ones it costs about what a card does.
Stripe charges 1.5% + €0.25 on standard EEA cards, 2.8% + €0.25 on premium EEA cards, 2.5% + €0.25 on UK cards and 3.15% + €0.25 on other international cards. Mollie charges 1.20% + €0.25 on Portuguese consumer cards, 1.80% + €0.25 on other EEA consumer cards and 2.90% + €0.25 on business cards. myPOS charges 1.30% + €0.20 on EEA consumer cards, Viva.com 2.19% + €0.24 and PayPal (A-) 2.90% + €0.35 on a standard PayPal payment. SumUp charges 2.75% on online payments.
Spanish customers can now pay Portuguese web shops with Bizum: eupago launched it on 15 September 2026 and is rolling it out to merchants, at 0.79% + €0.19 plus IVA, reduced to 0.59% + €0.15 until the end of 2026. Our guide to card and Bizum fees in Spain covers what Bizum costs there.
Decree-Law 91/2018, which brought the EU's second Payment Services Directive into Portuguese law, forbids a merchant from charging for the use of a payment instrument whose interchange fee is capped by the EU Interchange Fee Regulation. That covers consumer debit and credit cards, and the same article bans charges for SEPA transfers and direct debits. An older law, Decree-Law 3/2010, goes further: it forbids a merchant from charging the customer anything for using a particular payment instrument, so company cards and American Express cannot be surcharged either. You can still offer a discount for a cheaper way to pay.
Banco de Portugal says merchants are not obliged to accept payment cards at all, and may choose which card brands and which types (debit, credit, prepaid) they take. Two conditions follow. A business that accepts a brand and type of card cannot refuse some cards of that brand and type. It must also tell customers which cards and brands it accepts, and if it does not take every category of a scheme's cards it must say so clearly at the entrance and at the till, and online before the customer pays.
Cash has its own limit: Caixa Geral de Depósitos' guide to payment rules notes that payments of €3,000 or more cannot be made in cash, rising to €10,000 for non-resident individuals, such as tourists, who are not acting as a business. For how other euro-area markets compare, see our guides to card machine fees in Ireland and iDEAL's move to Wero.
