Credit card processing in Louisiana

Louisiana's debit card surcharge law

Act 751 of the 2026 Regular Session (Senate Bill 254) created a new Chapter 52 in Title 51 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, made up of R.S. 51:3081 and 51:3082. The Governor signed it on June 2, 2026, and it took effect on August 1, 2026. Under R.S. 51:3081(B), in a sale of goods or services, a retail business may not impose a surcharge on a cardholder who uses a debit card instead of cash, check, credit card, or another similar means of payment. The law defines a retail business broadly as any person or entity engaged in the sale of goods or services, so it is not limited to storefront retailers. A debit card is a card or other payment device that takes funds directly from the cardholder's deposit account. A surcharge is any additional amount the business adds at the time of the transaction that raises the charge for the privilege of using a debit card.

Enforcement and the 30-day cure period

A business that violates the section is liable to the cardholder for actual damages. Before filing suit, the cardholder must give the business written notice. If the business corrects the practice and refunds the surcharge within 30 days of receiving that notice, no private right of action arises. Private suits are limited to willful violations, repeated violations, or violations not cured in time. Separately, R.S. 51:3082 lets the Louisiana Attorney General bring a civil action, recover attorney fees and investigative costs when successful, and seek a civil penalty of up to $500 per violation of an administrative or court order. The Attorney General must keep a toll-free number and an online system for cardholders to report debit surcharges. Complaints must include the business name and address, the date and amount of the sale, the surcharge amount, and any receipt or invoice showing it.

What the Louisiana law does not cover

The statute is written only about debit cards. It does not prohibit or regulate surcharges on credit cards, and it does not set a cap, a notice rule, or a signage rule for credit surcharges. Those come from the card networks and from your processing agreement. The act also does not address cash discount programs by name. If you run one, have your processor or counsel confirm that debit customers are not paying more than they would under the posted price.

How Visa and Mastercard rules fit in

In the United States, Visa and Mastercard allow surcharges on credit transactions only. Debit and prepaid cards cannot be surcharged under either network's rules, so Louisiana's law and the network rules point the same way on debit. For credit, Visa requires 30 days' notice to your acquirer before you start, a surcharge no higher than your cost of acceptance and never above 3%, disclosure at the point of entry and the point of sale, and the surcharge shown as a separate line on the receipt. Mastercard requires at least 30 days' written notice to both Mastercard and your acquirer, caps the surcharge at the lower of your Mastercard merchant discount rate or Mastercard's published maximum, requires store-entry (or first checkout page) and point-of-sale disclosures, and requires the surcharge amount on the receipt. Card-present terminals must be able to tell debit from credit before any fee is added, including cards that carry both debit and credit functions.

Parish sales taxes and your displayed totals

According to the Louisiana Department of Revenue, the state sales tax rate is 5% as of January 1, 2025, and sales taxes levied by parishes and other local political subdivisions are added on top of the state tax. The Department describes the state and the parish as two separate taxing jurisdictions. That means the tax line on a receipt can change depending on where the sale takes place, including at a fair or festival in another parish. The Department's Parish E-File site offers a lookup tool for the combined rate at a specific address. Set up tax rates by location in your point-of-sale system before selling off-site, so the total a customer sees at checkout is the total they pay.

Festival season and event operations

Carnival season, music festivals, and football weekends can bring heavy, short bursts of card traffic across the state. Some practical steps: test your terminal's offline or store-and-forward mode before the event and understand that offline sales are approved later, so you carry the risk of declines. Use pre-authorization for bar tabs and rentals, and close tabs promptly so holds do not linger on customers' cards. If staff add tips after the card is run, confirm how your processor handles tip adjustments and batch at the end of each day. Check that surcharge settings, if you use them on credit, are switched off for debit cards on every device, including backup and mobile readers.