Credit card processing and merchant services in Phoenix, AZ
About 1.67 million people live in Phoenix, and Arizona cities add their own tax to the state's 5.6% TPT, so your terminal needs the combined rate before your first sale.
Say your Phoenix shop runs $60,000 a month in card sales and 35% of it is debit. A surcharge can only touch the $39,000 of credit, and only up to your actual cost on those cards. If that cost is 2.5%, the most you'd recover is $975 a month, and that's before any customers switch to debit to avoid the fee.
That's why we usually suggest looking at the rate itself before adding a fee. Arizona has no surcharge statute that we found, so Visa's and Mastercard's caps are the only limits on a surcharge, but a lower rate saves money on every card, debit included. With interchange-plus pricing, you see the card networks' cost and our markup as separate lines.
Taxes are the other setup job. Arizona's transaction privilege tax is the state's version of a sales tax, with a 5.6% state rate according to the Department of Revenue, and cities assess their own tax through TPT on top of it. Get the current combined rate for your Phoenix location from the department and set it in every terminal, online store and invoice template you use.
The scale here is large. The Census Bureau put Phoenix's population at 1,665,481 in July 2025, and the city's hotels, restaurants and bars had about $6.4 billion in sales in 2022, by the Economic Census count. If you take payments at job sites or in customers' homes, our mobile payments setup covers that, and a free statement review shows your effective rate today.
Payment services we provide
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Common questions
What sales tax do Phoenix businesses charge?
Arizona's transaction privilege tax plus the city's share. The Department of Revenue puts the state TPT rate at 5.6 percent, and cities assess their own tax through TPT on top of that. Confirm the current combined rate for your Phoenix address with the department before you set up terminals or an online store.
Can a Phoenix restaurant add a credit card surcharge?
Yes. We found no Arizona law that bans or caps surcharges, so Visa's and Mastercard's rules apply: no more than your cost of acceptance, 3% at most for Visa and 4% for Mastercard, notice at the door and the register, and the amount on the receipt. Debit and prepaid cards can't be surcharged. Our restaurant payment processing guide covers the rest.
Can I take card payments at job sites around Phoenix?
Yes. Our mobile payments include tap to pay and mobile card readers, and the virtual terminal handles phone payments, invoices and payment links. If you work in several cities, ask the Department of Revenue which TPT rates apply to your business before you send the first invoice.
Do Phoenix businesses have to accept cash?
We found no Arizona law requiring it, so at the state level card-only is a business decision rather than a legal one. Check the city code too. If you go card-only, any card fee becomes unavoidable for your customers, so we'd build it into your prices rather than add it at checkout.
More Arizona cities besides Phoenix
Disclaimer: general information, not professional advice
This page is general educational information, not legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Rules and rates vary by place and change, so confirm them with the official source and a qualified professional before you act. Full terms are in our Terms of Service.
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