Accepting cards takes three decisions and one application. You choose whether to be onboarded under a payment facilitator or to hold a merchant account in your own name, you get through identity and business checks, and you decide how your customer reaches the payment. The part worth your attention is pricing by card type, because the headline rate is rarely the rate you end up paying.
In this article
The short version
- A payment facilitator is defined by Mastercard as "a service provider that is registered by an acquirer to facilitate transactions on behalf of submerchants", under Rule 7.8 of the Mastercard Rules. That's the model behind almost every sign-up-today card product.
- Onboarding is identity and business verification. Stripe describes its "Know Your Customer" obligations as requiring it "to collect and maintain this information for all users".
- Stripe's premium card rate applies to "Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard", at 2.8% + 20p against 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards.
- On a £1,000 invoice that's £28.20 instead of £15.20, on our arithmetic from those two published rates. If you invoice other businesses, the higher rate is the one you'll meet most.
- Adfin publishes 1.0% + 20p with an additional 1% for premium and EEA cards, so the same £1,000 invoice on a business card comes to £20.20 on our own pricing.
- A cardholder can dispute a payment "up to 120 days" after the debit or after delivery was due, and online payments carry more chargeback risk because the card isn't present.
Merchant account or payment facilitator
Both routes reach the same card networks. What differs is whose agreement you're inside.
Under a facilitator, you're a submerchant. Mastercard's own description is "a service provider that is registered by an acquirer to facilitate transactions on behalf of submerchants". The facilitator holds the acquiring relationship, and you contract with the facilitator. Nearly every product you can sign up to today works this way, and it's why you can be taking payments within hours.
With a merchant account in your own name, you're the merchant of record. An acquirer underwrites you directly, you get your own merchant identification number, and your pricing can be quoted as interchange plus a margin instead of one blended percentage.
| What it changes | Under a facilitator | With your own merchant account |
|---|---|---|
| Who you contract with | The facilitator | The acquirer |
| How long to go live | Usually days, sometimes hours | Underwriting first, so longer |
| How pricing is quoted | One blended rate, published on a page | Interchange plus a negotiated margin, quoted to you |
| Who decides your terms | The facilitator, within its acquirer's rules | The acquirer, in a contract you signed |
| Where a dispute lands | Facilitator handles it, passes the outcome on | You, with the acquirer |
| What happens at volume | Blended pricing stops flattering you | Negotiation becomes possible |
The crossover is about volume. Blended pricing averages across card types, so it flatters you when your mix is expensive and costs you when your mix is cheap. Once cards are a large and predictable share of your revenue, asking an acquirer to quote against your real mix becomes worth the paperwork. Our guide to gateways and processors sets out who else is in the chain.
What onboarding asks for, and how long it takes
Onboarding is anti-money-laundering work wearing a sign-up form. Stripe puts the reason on its own documentation: "Our 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) obligations require us to collect and maintain this information for all users", and adds that "Regulators and financial partners require it to help prevent financial-system abuse".
What you're asked for divides into three groups. Information about the business and what it sells, described by Stripe as "information about your business, product, and relationship to the business". Information about you, so the people who control the business can be verified. And the detail your customers will see: Stripe lists business name and website URL, support email address, phone number and address, a support site URL, and the statement descriptor text that appears on the cardholder's statement. You'll also need a UK bank account in the name you're trading under, because settlement goes there and the name gets checked.
Get the statement descriptor right at sign-up. Stripe's guidance is to make sure it's "clearly associated with you", because a customer who can't recognise a payment may dispute it, and that dispute costs you the same as any other.
Settle the country at sign-up too. Stripe notes that once a service is live "you can't change the business origin country".
Timing is where published sources run out. No regulator or scheme publishes a UK average, and providers describe their process without committing to a duration. In practice a facilitator sign-up for a straightforward UK company tends to complete in a day or two, and anything needing a human review, such as a higher-risk sector or an ownership structure that isn't obvious from the register, takes longer. Treat a quoted timescale as a target.
What the rate you're quoted is made of
Your card bill has three parts, and the Payment Systems Regulator names them as the merchant service charge comprising "interchange fees, scheme and processing fees and acquirer net revenue".
Only the first is capped. UK interchange runs at a maximum of 0.2% of the transaction on a consumer debit card and 0.3% on a consumer credit card, under the interchange fee regulation. The schemes' own fees and your provider's margin have no ceiling.
Smaller merchants pay considerably more. The regulator's card-acquiring work found average charges of 2.76% to 2.78% where card turnover was under £15,000, against 0.93% to 0.97% between £180,000 and £380,000, on 2020 data. Our guide to what it really costs to take payments in the UK works through the whole decomposition and those bands in full.
Why the headline rate isn't the rate you'll pay
Card pricing has two tiers, and the split has nothing to do with the amount, the channel or the customer. What decides it is who issued the card.
Stripe defines its two domestic tiers explicitly. Standard domestic cards are "Consumer cards issued by Visa, Mastercard, and other major providers". Premium domestic cards are "Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard", and the classification is made "based on information from card networks at the point of capture". Standard is 1.5% + 20p. Premium is 2.8% + 20p, nearly double.
If your customers are companies, their finance teams pay on company cards, so a large share of your card volume arrives on the cards carrying the higher rate. A published headline of 1.5% then describes payments you rarely receive.
The arithmetic is ours, from those two published rates on a £1,000 invoice:
| Card the customer uses | Stripe published rate | Fee on £1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer debit or credit | 1.5% + 20p | £15.20 |
| Commercial, corporate or business | 2.8% + 20p | £28.20 |
| Same invoice on Adfin's published rate | 1.0% + 20p, plus 1% for premium and EEA cards | £20.20 |
Neither provider's rate page carries an effective date.
The reason behind the two tiers is regulatory. Commercial cards are excluded from the scope of the interchange caps, so accepting one genuinely costs more at wholesale. The same fact drives the surcharging rules: a surcharge on a consumer card is banned outright, and a surcharge on a commercial card is permitted provided it doesn't exceed what that payment costs you. Our guide to payment surcharges sets out the legal test.
So there are three practical responses, and you can run more than one. Ask a prospective provider what your effective rate looks like on a card mix like yours, instead of accepting the headline. Consider surcharging commercial cards inside the legal limit. And move the revenue that repeats onto bank debit, where the fee is capped instead of climbing with the invoice.
What you're liable for when a payment is disputed
Taking cards means accepting that a payment can come back. GOV.UK sets out the mechanism: a customer asks their card issuer to reverse the transaction, and the value can be recovered from you where goods fail to arrive, don't match their description, or the card was used fraudulently. The window runs "up to 120 days" after the debit or after delivery was due.
Two points from the same guidance matter when you're deciding how to take payment. PIN verification limits your exposure to defective or misdescribed goods. And online payments carry a higher chargeback risk, because the card isn't there to be checked.
Disputes carry fees of their own, and those sit outside the rate you compared. Stripe publishes a "Dispute received fee £20.00 for each dispute you receive", charged whether or not you win. That's the sort of line to ask about before you sign, because two providers with the same headline percentage can differ sharply on it.
The steps in order
- Decide the route. A facilitator to be live quickly, your own merchant account if card volume is already large enough to price against your real mix.
- Gather the documents: company details, identity documents for the people who control the business, the settlement account and a description of what you sell.
- Apply, and get the statement descriptor right first time.
- Ask for the pricing detail behind the headline. The premium or commercial card rate, what a dispute costs, what happens on a refund, and whether the quote excludes VAT.
- Choose how the customer reaches the payment. A link on the invoice needs no integration; a checkout on your own site does.
- Test with a real card of your own, including a refund, before a customer sees it.
- Check your first statement against the quote, by card type, and query anything you can't account for.
Keeping the card payment and the invoice in one place keeps reconciliation manageable. Adfin puts card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, open banking and direct debit on the same invoice, matches the payment back automatically and syncs to Xero or QuickBooks.
Common questions
Do I need a merchant account to accept card payments? No. A payment facilitator registers you as a submerchant under its own acquiring arrangement, and that's how same-day card acceptance works. A merchant account in your own name becomes worth pricing when card volume is large enough for a negotiated rate to come in under a blended one.
What does a card provider ask for at sign-up? Business details and a description of what you sell, identity verification for the people who control the business, a UK bank account for settlement, and the public details your customers see, including the descriptor that appears on their statement.
How long does card onboarding take? Often a day or two for a straightforward UK company through a facilitator. Anything needing manual review takes longer, and no regulator or scheme publishes an average, so treat quoted timescales as targets.
Why is my effective card rate higher than the rate I was quoted? Usually card mix. Stripe's premium rate of 2.8% + 20p applies to "Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard" against 1.5% + 20p for consumer cards, so a business-to-business book lands on the higher tier more often.
Can I charge my customers the card fee? On a commercial card, yes, as long as the fee doesn't exceed what that payment actually costs you. On a consumer card, surcharging is banned outright.
How long can a customer dispute a card payment? Up to 120 days after the payment was debited, or after the goods or services were due to be delivered.
Sources
- legislation.gov.uk — Regulation (EU) 2015/751 on interchange fees (accurate as of August 2026)
- GOV.UK — invoicing and taking payment from customers, payment obligations (accurate as of August 2026)
- Mastercard — payment facilitators (accurate as of August 2026)
- Stripe — activate your account (accurate as of August 2026)
- Stripe — standard and premium cards (accurate as of August 2026)
- Stripe — UK pricing (accurate as of August 2026)
Reviewed by the Adfin team. This article explains how card acceptance works in the UK and is not legal or financial advice. Scheme rules, regulatory scope and provider pricing all change; check current guidance and current rate cards before relying on them. Last updated August 2026.
