Credit card surcharge in the Development Portal 

Payments made with a credit card incur a 0.7% surcharge. The surcharge will be added to the total payable amount for Development Services and Private Works. We are charged fees by our financial institutions when our customers pay using the credit option. The 0.7% surcharge is the same rate charged to us by financial institutions. 

Payment options that do not incur the surcharge include Debit Card transactions and Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT).

Surcharge FAQs

The credit card surcharge is applied on top of your transaction when you enter a credit card as your method of payment.

Unitywater is charged fees by financial institutions when customers pay using the credit option.

It has become standard business practice elsewhere in government and industry that customers who choose to pay for services using the credit option incur a surcharge.

There are two other ways to pay that do not incur a surcharge, including:

  • Debit Card 
  • Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
The credit card surcharge will apply for as long as there are these costs associated with credit facilities.
Unitywater are charged the same amount of 0.7% by the financial institution. 
The credit card surcharge may increase in line with business costs associated with credit transactions.
Other government jurisdictions do pass on these fees. Unitywater incurs a high cost of credit card merchant fees due to the large volume of payments. The decision to surcharge for our products was made in line with current government priorities, aiming to reduce costs to the government.
The money collected is offsetting the fees charged by financial institutions.

 

This table provides examples of the 0.70% surcharge. 

Example amount Example surcharge
 $500 $3.50
$1000 $7.00
$1500 $10.50
$2000 $14.00
$2500 $17.50
$3000 $21.00
$3500 $24.50
$4000 $28.00
$4500 $31.50
$5000 $35.00