It depends on the size of the fee and who pays the card cost. On a £6,900 perm fee, a business card can cost you around £138 where a bank payment costs a few pounds, so you may want to pass the fee on to business-card payers or switch card off for perm clients. Card still earns its place on smaller invoices and with clients who can only pay that way.
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The short version
- On a £6,900 perm fee, a business card costs £138.20 on Adfin's pricing, against £4.20 by bank transfer or pay by bank.
- Business cards can be surcharged up to the cost of accepting them; personal cards can't be surcharged at all.
- Adfin can add a surcharge to business card payments for one client or all of them.
- You can stop offering card payments for everyone or for particular clients by setting the card limit to zero.
- Card can still make sense on smaller temp invoices and for clients who pay suppliers by purchasing card.
What a card payment costs on a perm fee
Card fees are a percentage of the payment with no ceiling, so they grow with the invoice. That's fine on a £60 purchase and a different matter on a placement fee.
Most of your clients are businesses, and a business that pays by card will often use a business card. Those cards sit outside the UK's caps on interchange fees, so they generally cost more to accept than personal cards. On Adfin's published pricing, business Visa and Mastercard, Amex and EEA cards cost 2% + 20p, and standard UK cards 1% + 20p. For a £6,900 fee:
- paid on a business card: £138 + 20p = £138.20
- paid on a standard UK card: £69 + 20p = £69.20
- paid by bank transfer or pay by bank: 1% would be £69, but the percentage is capped at £4, so £4.20
On a £9,600 placement the business card figure reaches £192.20, while the bank payment stays at £4.20. If your margin on a perm fee is already squeezed by a discounted rate or a rebate, that £192.20 comes straight off it.
Can you pass the card fee on to the client?
For business cards, yes. UK law bans surcharges on personal (consumer) cards, but you can add a surcharge to a commercial card payment as long as it doesn't exceed what the card costs you to accept.
Adfin offers business card surcharging. It detects business cards at the point of payment and adds the surcharge, which the client pays on top of the invoice. Personal cards are never surcharged, and the 20p fixed fee still applies to you. You can turn surcharging on for one client or for all of them.
Tell clients before you start. A line in your terms of business and on the invoice ("payments by business card carry a surcharge; there's no extra charge for bank transfer") means nobody is surprised at checkout, and it's likely to steer some clients towards paying by bank.
How to switch card off for some or all clients
If you'd rather not take cards on perm fees at all, you don't have to. You can set a limit for each payment method, and a limit of £0 stops that method being offered. You can do it for everyone, or only for particular clients, so a client who settles £870 temp invoices by card can keep doing so while your perm clients see bank payment only. Apple Pay and Google Pay follow the card setting.
Two things to know before you decide:
- For companies, the default card limit is £10,000, so a fee above that won't be offered by card unless you raise the limit.
- Without card, clients can still pay by bank or by bank transfer, each £4.20 at most per payment. With pay by bank the client approves the payment in their banking app, and the money reaches you the same day.
When taking cards still makes sense
On smaller invoices the sums look different. An £870 weekly temp invoice costs £17.60 on a business card and £8.90 on a standard card. If a client pays by card on the day the invoice lands, you may well decide that's worth it with weekly payroll to fund.
Some finance teams put all supplier spend on a purchasing card. If you refuse card, you may be waiting for a supplier set-up and the next payment run instead.
Then there's the overdue fee you just want closed. If a client has been sitting on a £6,900 invoice for six weeks and offers to pay by card today, £138.20 may feel like a fair price for ending the chase, and with surcharging on, the client pays a surcharge on top.
You could, for example, offer bank payment only on perm fees, keep card available on temp invoices, and switch surcharging on for business cards wherever card is offered. If a client still drifts past the due date, Adfin's AI Customer Agents can send a reminder with a payment link over email, SMS or WhatsApp, following rules you've approved.
Common questions
How much does it cost to take a £5,000 placement fee by card? On Adfin's pricing, a business card costs 2% + 20p, so £100.20, and a standard UK card £50.20. By bank payment it's £4.20.
Is it legal to charge clients a card surcharge in the UK? On business (commercial) cards, yes, up to what the card costs you to accept. Surcharges on personal cards are banned.
Can I surcharge a client who pays by bank transfer? No. Surcharging applies to business card payments only.
Can I stop offering card payments to just one client? Yes. In Adfin you can set a client's card limit to zero, so card isn't offered to them while other clients can still use it.
Why do business cards cost more than personal cards? The UK caps interchange fees on consumer cards but not on commercial cards, so business cards generally cost more to accept.
Will clients be put off by a card surcharge? Some will switch to bank transfer, which is usually what agencies want on a large fee. Saying so in your terms of business and on the invoice avoids surprises.
Sources
- legislation.gov.uk - The Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012, regulation 6A (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/3110/regulation/6A
- Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
- Adfin - Use business card surcharging to pass back card fees to your customers (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.adfin.com/en/articles/13603793-use-business-card-surcharging-to-pass-back-card-fees-to-your-customers
- Adfin - Managing payment limits for each payment method (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.adfin.com/en/articles/10840569-managing-payment-limits-for-each-payment-method
