Credit card processing and merchant services in Riverside, CA

CDTFA's rates operative October 1, 2026 list the city of Riverside at 8.75% and Riverside County at 7.75%. On a $640 sale, that's $56.00 in tax inside the city and $49.60 at the county rate. If you move into the city from an address outside it, or open a second location, the rate on your terminal has to move with you. Look up each address with CDTFA rather than going by the mailing address.

Riverside grew to an estimated 323,057 residents by July 2025, 2.4% more than its 2020 base of 315,470.

Once tax is set, look at the other percentage taken from every sale. Your effective processing rate is total fees divided by card sales. A shop that paid $1,310 in fees on $42,000 of card sales last month ran at 3.12%. On its own, that number doesn't tell you much. What matters is how much of it sits above interchange, the part that goes to the banks that issued your customers' cards. Our guide to reading a merchant statement shows where each piece hides, and interchange-plus pricing puts them on separate lines so you don't have to dig.

Some owners skip that step and reach straight for a surcharge. California allows one in practice, with conditions: the 1748.1 ban is still in the Civil Code, the Attorney General generally follows the Italian Colors decision for similarly situated merchants, and Visa and Mastercard cap the fee at your cost. Our California page has the sources. A surcharge never touches debit cards, though, while a lower markup applies to every card you take.

Send last month's statement for a free statement review and we'll work out the effective rate and the markup for you.