The cost of accepting credit cards in Washington

Key findings

The national picture: fees at a record

Card acceptance is no longer a minor line item. U.S. merchants paid more than $187.2 billion in credit and debit card processing fees in 2024, according to figures from The Nilson Report, a new all-time high, and the total climbed again in 2025.^[1][2] Those fees flow through to prices; the Merchants Payments Coalition estimates swipe fees cost the average American household well over $1,000 a year.^[1] For a business that accepts cards, processing is routinely one of the largest costs it carries after payroll.

How a swipe fee is built

Every card fee has three parts. Interchangeis set by the card networks and paid to the bank that issued your customer's card; it is the largest slice. Assessmentsare the networks' own cut. The processor markup is what a provider adds on top, and it is the part that varies most from one setup to the next and the part that is actually negotiable. When we read a statement, the markup is the first line we look at.^[3] Our guide to reading a merchant statement shows how to find it.

What each network charges

Interchange is not one number. It is a grid of hundreds of rates that turn on the card type, how the card is entered, and your industry. Rewards cards cost more; keyed and online sales cost more than a chip tap. The ranges below are the published 2024–2025 figures.^[3][4]

Combine those with assessments and a processor markup and the all-in cost most businesses see lands between 1.5% and 3.5% per credit card sale.^[3]

Debit is different — and it is capped

Debit interchange is regulated. Under the Federal Reserve's Regulation II — the rule that implements the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act — the interchange on a regulated debit transaction is capped at 21 cents plus 5 basis points of the sale, plus a 1-cent fraud adjustment.^[5] In 2023 the Fed proposed lowering that base cap from 21 cents to 14.4 cents.^[6] The practical takeaway for a merchant: debit generally costs far less per swipe than credit, so your card mix — how much of your volume runs on credit versus debit — drives your effective rate as much as the pricing plan does.

What a typical Washington business pays

Here is one worked example, with every input shown so you can check it against your own statement. It is an illustration, not a quote.

Change the volume or the rate and the number moves, but the shape holds: a mid-sized Washington shop is often paying five figures a year to accept credit cards, before debit costs are added.

Washington, by the numbers

This is not a niche problem. Washington is home to 695,695 small businesses, which is 99.5% of all businesses in the state, and they employ roughly 1.5 million people, about 48.7% of the private workforce.^[9] Nearly every one of them that accepts a card pays into the national totals above, month after month, from a Federal Way salon to a Spokane contractor.

What is changing

Two forces could move rates. First, the long-running antitrust case over swipe fees — pending since 2005 — produced a revised settlement in November 2025 in which Visa and Mastercard would lower interchange modestly over several years; commentators put the merchant savings near $29.8 billion.^[7] An earlier settlement was rejected by a federal judge in 2024 as too small, and merchant groups argue the new one still leaves businesses paying well above a competitive rate.^[8]Second, the Federal Reserve's proposal to lower the debit cap remains pending.^[6] Neither is guaranteed, and neither arrives quickly, which is why the levers a business controls today matter more.

What a Washington business can do now

Two options are available in Washington, and the right one depends on your card mix. With credit card surcharging, a disclosed fee moves the cost of credit acceptance to customers who choose to pay by credit card, which suits card-heavy and B2B businesses. With dual pricing, you post a cash price and a card price and the customer chooses, which covers every card type and suits counter businesses. Washington permits surcharging within the network caps and disclosure rules; see our Washington surcharge rules. A free rate analysis puts a real number on your own statement before you change anything.

Methodology

National fee totals, network rate ranges, and the settlement and regulatory details are drawn from the sources cited below. The Washington business counts are the U.S. Small Business Administration's most recent state profile. The single dollar figure we derive, for a typical shop, is a plain calculation from a stated volume, card mix, and effective rate, and it is labeled an illustration rather than a quote. We do not publish savings promises; your result depends on your own numbers. This page is updated as new figures are published.

References

1. [1] Merchants Payments Coalition, “Credit and Debit Card ‘Swipe’ Fees Hit New Record of $187.2 Billion,” citing The Nilson Report (2025).
2. [2] The Nilson Report, “Merchant Processing Fees in the United States — 2025.”
3. [3] The Motley Fool, “Average Credit Card Processing Fees and Costs in America.”
4. [4] CreditDonkey, “Interchange Rates — Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express.”
5. [5] Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Regulation II — Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing (Durbin Amendment); “Average Debit Card Interchange Fee by Payment Card Network.”
6. [6] Federal Register, “Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing,” proposed rule (Nov. 14, 2023), Docket No. 2023-24034.
7. [7] CNBC, “Visa, Mastercard reach revised swipe fee settlement with merchants” (Nov. 10, 2025).
8. [8] NBC News, “Visa and Mastercard settle long-running antitrust suit over swipe fees with merchants.”
9. [9] U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, “2025 Washington Small Business Profile.”