Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTChris MorrisThu, June 4, 2026 at 11:30 AM GMT+2 4 min readIf you’ve paid the bill at your favorite restaurant with a credit card lately, you’ve almost certainly seen the charge added at the bottom. Credit card processing fees have become a standard line-item for many retail receipts these days. But you may not realize just how much you’re paying for those.The National Retail Federation (1), an industry organization working to reduce swipe fees, estimates the average household is paying an extra $1,200 per year as more and more consumers opt to pay with a credit or debit card instead of cash. Sometimes that’s because of swipe fees. Other times, retailers simply raise prices to cover the costs.Must ReadPrime US real estate was a rich person's game — then something changed. Now everyday Americans are getting a piece of the action for as little as $100Millionaires under 43 are reshaping investing — just 25% of their portfolios are in stocks. Here’s where their money is goingRobert Kiyosaki says this 1 asset will surge 400% in a year and begs investors not to miss this ‘explosion’The end result is some people end up paying significantly more than others.Since 2019, total credit and debit card fees paid to card processors have increased 70%, climbing to $198 billion in 2025, according to data from the Nilson Report. (2)While no shopper is exempt from higher prices, people who pay by credit cards that offer an array of perks, from admission to exclusive airport clubs to cash back, ultimately pay less than people who pay with debit or cash because of the cost offset of those benefits.The multi-billion dollar gapHarvard Business School recently studied the gap (3) that swipe charges and higher prices have created, determining that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion every year from cash and debit users to credit card users.That amounts to a penalty for lower- and middle-income Americans, who may not be able to qualify for premium credit cards or are unable to afford the high annual fees those cards often carry.A Federal Reserve study (4) published in 2025 found that people in households that earn less than $25,000 per year used cash for 24% of payments. They were more than twice as likely to use cash as people in households earning more than $100,000.Older Americans were also more frequent cash payers, with people 55 and older paying with cash 19% of the time, versus 10% for people aged 25 to 54.Read More: Taxes are going to change under Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ — 4 reasons you can’t afford to waste timePremium’s riseA growing number of people are embracing premium credit cards, in large part because of the perks they offer. The Harvard study said premium card use made up 60% of all credit card use in 2022, versus just 15% in 2006.Terms and Privacy PolicyPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info