The EU caps card interchange at 0.2 and 0.3 percent

The workload

A SaaS founder selling into the EU does not negotiate this rule directly; it is a ceiling sitting between the card networks and whatever European payment processor issues the merchant its pricing, and it explains part of why a European processor's blended rate can look different from a US one. Verified, from the regulation's own text on EUR-Lex: Article 3 states payment service providers "shall not offer or request a per transaction interchange fee of more than 0,2% of the value of the transaction for any debit card transaction," and Article 4 sets a 0.3% ceiling "for any credit card transaction." The workload here sits on the processor and issuer side of a transaction; a merchant's task is knowing the cap exists when comparing a processor's quoted rate against what it could theoretically include.

What the documents show

Verified: the regulation's own Article 1(3) exempts "transactions with commercial cards" and "transactions with payment cards issued by three party payment card schemes" from the caps entirely — a business paying with a corporate card is not covered by the 0.2%/0.3% ceiling that applies to consumer cards. Verified, from the EU's own official summary of the same regulation: member states "may set lower caps for credit card transactions" than the EU-wide 0.3%, and debit transactions may instead carry "a fixed fee of up to 5 eurocents per transaction" as an alternative to the percentage cap. Verified, same summary: the regulation "has applied since 8 June 2015," alongside the revised Payment Services Directive, both framed by the Commission as making payments "safer and cheaper."

The operating cost

The regulation states a ceiling, not a merchant's actual rate — a European processor's own pricing page, not this regulation, states what a merchant is actually charged, and that figure sits at or below the capped interchange plus the processor's own margin and any scheme fee. This entry has no specific processor's EU rate card to cite, so no single number is stated here; a merchant's actual cost should be read from that processor's own current pricing page.

The stop condition

Verified: the cap does not expire on its own terms within the text reviewed here; it is a standing ceiling rather than a rule with a sunset date. Editorial: the practical planning point for a founder is checking, transaction by transaction, whether a card is consumer or commercial, since the commercial-card exemption means a B2B SaaS charging mostly corporate cards may be paying interchange with no EU-wide percentage ceiling at all.

• Are this business's EU customers paying mostly with consumer cards, commercial cards, or a mix that changes which cap, if any, applies?
• Does the processor's quoted EU rate separate interchange from its own margin, or present one blended number?
• Would a debit-heavy EU customer base benefit from a processor that passes through the flat 5-eurocent alternative rather than the percentage cap?

A rate cap set in Brussels reaches a one-person SaaS business only through a processor's pricing page. Reading the regulation's own text says what the ceiling is; it does not say what any specific business actually pays.