Credit card processing and merchant services in Montreal, QC

In Montreal, as everywhere in Quebec, the first payment rule is short: no card fees. That holds for every merchant selling to consumers in a city of 1,762,949 people at the 2021 Census, and across a census metropolitan area of 4,291,732.

The Office de la protection du consommateur says merchants may not charge consumers a fee for paying by debit or credit card, and that telling the customer in advance doesn't make it legal. The only amounts you can add to the advertised price are those a law requires you to collect from the consumer for a public authority, such as sales tax. A "card fee" sign by the till won't rescue a surcharge in Montreal.

Restaurants carry a second set of rules. Under Revenu Québec's mandatory billing measures, restaurant operators have to record transactions with a certified sales recording system that communicates with the WEB-SRM, and hand every customer a bill produced by that system. Taxi services covered by the same measures must always give the passenger a bill. Before you add a payment terminal, confirm it works alongside your certified system rather than around it.

There's a language rule as well. Section 57 of the Charter of the French language requires invoices and receipts to be drawn up in French, so check the language settings on your terminals and invoicing software.

Since you can't recover card costs at the till, lower them at the source. We price on interchange-plus with no long-term contract, and a free statement review will show where your money goes. Province-wide details are on our Quebec page.