Michigan families may pay indirectly for the fees merchants incur when customers use credit cards: businesses can factor card-acceptance costs into prices. The Credit Card Competition Act would address the issue by adding network-routing competition for certain credit-card transactions—not by setting a federal cap on swipe fees. Michigan’s senators, Elissa Slotkin and Gary Peters, should support the proposal, while its projected savings should be treated as proponents’ claims rather than established household savings.
What swipe fees are—and who pays them
“Swipe fee” is a common term for costs a merchant pays to accept a card. A major component is interchange: according to a 2024 Senate Judiciary Committee statement, the card network sets interchange and it is paid to the bank that issued the card. Merchants also pay fees directly to networks. Those charges are part of the merchant’s cost of doing business.
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The Michigan Attorney General’s consumer guidance describes typical merchant credit-card processing costs as 1.5% to 3.5% of a transaction. That is a general range, not a rate that applies to every merchant, processor, or card. The state’s overview is at Michigan Attorney General: Credit card surcharges.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteMerchants may account for operating expenses in their prices, so consumers can bear card costs indirectly. But the reviewed sources do not quantify how much of these fees is passed through to Michigan shoppers, or how that effect varies by business. Dick Durbin’s 2024 Senate Judiciary opening statement described the transaction as follows: “Every time a consumer makes a purchase using a credit card, a swipe fee is taken out of the transaction amount and divided between the credit card network and the bank that issued the card.” That is a sponsor’s explanation of the fee structure, not an estimate of the resulting price increase.
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What Michigan shoppers should know about surcharges
Michigan has no state law prohibiting or restricting credit-card surcharges, according to the Attorney General. The state guidance says surcharges have been allowed under card-network rules since 2013. A merchant’s choice to add one is subject to applicable network rules, limits tied to the merchant’s costs, and disclosure requirements.
- For a brick-and-mortar store, the guidance calls for disclosure at the entrance and at the point of sale.
- For an online seller, the surcharge must be disclosed where payment cards are first mentioned.
- The guidance says debit and prepaid cards cannot be surcharged under the referenced settlement and network rules.
- Merchants may offer a discount for cash instead.
These rules concern what a merchant may charge a customer at checkout. They are distinct from the underlying processing fees paid by merchants and from the federal bill discussed below. Check the state guidance for current requirements, since rules and network terms can change.
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What the Credit Card Competition Act would change
The Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), as described in Senate materials, would require banks with more than $100 billion in assets to enable at least two unaffiliated networks for covered credit-card transactions, including one network outside Visa and Mastercard. The stated policy approach is to give merchants a choice of network for routing eligible transactions, with sponsors arguing that added competition could lower merchant costs.
The proposal is not a direct cap on credit-card interchange or other fees. It would change the routing choices available for covered transactions; it would not itself prescribe a particular fee rate or guarantee that merchants’ savings become lower consumer prices.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 2024 statement cited a Federal Reserve figure that about 83% of general-purpose credit cards were Visa or Mastercard cards, and reported nearly 576 million Visa and Mastercard cards. The committee also cited more than $100 billion in U.S. merchant credit-card fees in 2023. These are figures reported in committee materials to explain the case for the bill, not an independent evaluation of what the proposed law would save.
How large is the claimed family cost?
There is no single, independently established Michigan-family cost estimate in the reviewed sources. The opinion behind this argument claims swipe fees add $1,800 a year to the average American family’s cost of living. A separate January 15, 2026 release from Senator Dick Durbin’s office says the average American family pays nearly $1,200 annually and that banks received $111.2 billion in credit-card swipe fees in 2024. Those figures are differently framed advocacy claims; the materials do not establish that they use the same period, methodology, or definition of cost. Neither should be presented as a measured bill for Michigan households.
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Durbin’s office frames the proposal’s expected benefit this way: “By injecting competition in the credit card market, this bill would help bring down swipe fees that small businesses pay and that ultimately get passed on to America’s working families in the form of higher prices.” That is the sponsor’s forecast. The cited materials do not establish the amount of any resulting savings or how much would reach consumers through lower prices.
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Merchants face card-acceptance costs, and consumers can bear some of those costs through prices. Giving merchants another network-routing option for covered credit transactions is a targeted way to introduce competition without claiming that every fee will disappear or that a fixed household saving is guaranteed. For those reasons, Michigan’s senators, Elissa Slotkin and Gary Peters, should support the Credit Card Competition Act.
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The latest specific bill-status evidence cited here is Durbin’s January 15, 2026 release, which described the bill as reintroduced that week. This article does not establish a later procedural status or enactment; readers can consult the release from Durbin’s office for that announcement.
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