A ban on credit card payment surcharges began in NSW on 1 October, 2026, stopping businesses from passing on the cost of card payments to customers.
But the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) says the government has exempted itself from the same standard, continuing to charge landlords every time a tenant pays rent through Centrepay.
Agents, or landlords in the absence of an appointed agent, are required to offer Centrepay as a rent payment option for tenants. Failing to do so carries a $5,500 fine.
Each time a tenant uses Centrepay to pay rent, the NSW Government charges the agent or landlord $0.99.
REINSW has sought a response from the Minister for Better Regulation on what it calls the “apparent hypocrisy” of the arrangement.
Tim McKibbin, REINSW’s Chief Executive Officer, said the practice raised ethical questions.
“Preventing businesses who offer the convenience of card payments to their customers from recouping the cost of doing so is one thing. But for Government to continue to benefit from doing precisely what it has banned commercial operators from doing is another,” Tim said.
“The REINSW believes consumers have the right to know the Minister’s response to this apparent hypocrisy.”
Tim said the arrangement resembled “third line forcing”, where the supply of a good or service is made conditional on the purchaser buying something from a third party, a practice he described as “illegal in some circumstances, and unethical in others, although given Australian Consumer Law doesn’t apply to Government, we don’t need to pursue this question.”
He went further, questioning whether the government was using legislation to its own commercial advantage.
“The issue does raise another, more sinister, question: is Government using its legislative power to improve its market position?” Tim said.
According to REINSW, there are approximately 950,000 rental properties in NSW where rent is typically paid monthly, fortnightly or weekly, and the government collects $0.99 each time Centrepay is used.
Tim said that even if only 20 per cent of those properties used Centrepay, that would amount to 190,000 rental properties and 4,940,000 individual rental payments across 26 fortnightly cycles a year, putting the government’s annual take at $4,890,600.
“How, exactly, is this helping to address the rental crisis?” he said.