Credit card processing and merchant services in Tucson, AZ

Debit is where surcharge plans usually fall short. Neither Visa nor Mastercard allows a surcharge on debit or prepaid cards, so a surcharge program never touches that part of a Tucson merchant's volume. That cuts both ways. Interchange on debit cards from large banks is already capped under Regulation II at 21 cents plus 0.05% of the sale, plus a 1 cent fraud-prevention adjustment. On a $20 sale, that's 23 cents.

Credit cards are where a surcharge can apply. Arizona has no surcharge statute that we found, so the network caps decide it: your cost or 3% for Visa, your cost or 4% for Mastercard, with notice at the entrance and the register and the amount on the receipt.

On taxes, Arizona's transaction privilege tax has a 5.6% state rate, and cities assess their own tax through TPT. Get your current combined rate from the Department of Revenue before you program a terminal, and recheck it when the department announces changes.

About 548,000 people lived in Tucson in July 2025, by the Census Bureau's estimate, and the city's hotels, restaurants and bars had roughly $2 billion in sales in 2022. Businesses at that scale feel every tenth of a percent in card fees.

If you want to know where your money goes, a free statement review breaks down your effective rate. Our retail and restaurant pages show how we set up shops and kitchens, and the Arizona page collects the state rules with their sources.