Rogers and Fido Are Adding a 1.6% Credit Card Fee to Your Bill Next Year

Rogers and Fido will add a 1.6% fee on credit card bill payments starting January 17, 2027. Rogers has the same fee detailed on its credit card charge support page for business customers, and consumers are now seeing a notice about it in the Rogers app.

The notice shows up in the Rogers app’s Update payment method screen, including when you set up auto-pay. It reads:

“Starting January 17, 2027, if you pay your bill by credit card, a 1.6% credit card processing charge will apply. This reflects the fees we are charged by credit card companies. Other payment options, such as debit card or direct debit from your bank account, are available without the charge. Not applicable in Quebec.”

The notice points customers to Rogers’ billing help page for more on exclusions, but that page doesn’t mention the fee yet.

What Rogers Says

In a statement to iPhone in Canada on Wednesday, Rogers confirmed the fee applies to Fido customers as well, and said its credit card processing costs “have gone up nearly 40% since 2020.” The company now pays “about $150 million a year in fees.”

The change “helps us recover our costs,” according to the statement, and customers can still pay by debit card or direct debit from their bank account without the charge.

Plenty of other bills in Canada already carry a credit card fee, including the Canada Revenue Agency at up to 2.5%, BC Hydro and Hydro One at 1.75%, Flair Airlines at up to 2.4%, the City of Toronto at 2.35% and UBC at 2.65%.

Those are utilities, governments, a school and an airline, though, and none of them is a wireless carrier. The one Canadian carrier that tried a similar fee, Telus, dropped it after less than a year (more on that below). Rogers didn’t address whether Chatr customers will pay the fee when we asked (Update: the 1.6% fee does not apply to Chatr, Rogers just confirmed).

The fee also lands as card networks add new costs for merchants. As we reported last week, Visa and Mastercard are introducing a new charge of 1.8 cents USD per domestic transaction, with Mastercard rolling it out now and Visa adding it in April 2027. Visa’s lower rates announced at the same time are for small businesses, so a company the size of Rogers won’t see those savings.

Who Pays and Who Doesn’t

The fee applies when you pay your Rogers or Fido bill with a credit card. Paying by debit card or setting up pre-authorized debit from your bank account avoids it, and customers in Quebec are excluded because the province’s Consumer Protection Act bans credit card surcharges.

On the business side, Rogers says the charge applies to Rogers Small Business bills for 9-digit account numbers. It is “not applicable to 12-digit account numbers, Enterprise, Quebec and Shaw Business customers.” Rogers also says it is “increasingly common across many sectors for a credit card fee to apply,” which is true, though it won’t make anyone feel better about their next bill.

Don’t count on a Rogers Bank card to get you out of it either. Rogers’ own page doesn’t list any exemption for its own credit cards.

What 1.6% Adds to Your Bill

On a $100 monthly bill, the fee works out to $1.60. A household paying $200 a month for a couple of phone lines and home internet would pay an extra $3.20 a month, or $38.40 a year. That is roughly a large Tim Hortons coffee every month, just for choosing to pay with plastic.

It also takes a bite out of the rewards that made paying by card worthwhile. Starting November 18, 2026, the Rogers Bank credit card page says cardholders will earn 5% cash back on certain eligible Rogers purchases. That replaces the 1.5x redemption bonus that Rogers Bank is killing on the same date. If the new fee applies to those cards, a third of that 5% goes right back to Rogers, and anyone using a regular 1% or 2% card ends up close to break-even or worse.

Rogers has been steering customers toward bank payments for a while now. Its Auto-Pay Discount support page says “Starting September 15, 2026, the Auto-Pay Discount is available only when eligible services are paid by pre-authorized debit or with a Rogers Bank credit card.” The Fido Auto-Pay Discount page carries the same wording.

Telus Tried This in 2022 and Backed Down

Rogers is not the first carrier to try this. Telus started charging a 1.5% credit card processing fee on October 17, 2022, shortly after Visa and Mastercard began allowing Canadian merchants to add surcharges on October 6, 2022. Telus’ fee applied to its wireless and internet customers outside Quebec, and prepaid accounts were excluded.

The CRTC received close to 4,000 interventions on the plan and blocked Telus’ fee for its regulated services in December 2022. Those services were mostly rural home phone lines, so the fee stayed in place for everyone else. In its news release on the decision, the CRTC warned that “should the practice continue, the CRTC will explore all available regulatory options.”

Telus quietly dropped the 1.5% fee as of June 1, 2023. A Telus spokesperson told iPhone in Canada at the time, “After thoughtful review, we have removed the Credit Card Processing Fee on bill payments.” Telus later moved to end its $5 auto-pay discount for credit card users on Telus and Koodo plans in 2025.

Back in 2022, both Rogers and Bell told CBC News they had no plans to add a credit card surcharge. Bell’s bill payment support page still lists Visa, Mastercard and American Express without any processing fee.

The Rules in Canada

Merchants outside Quebec have been allowed to add credit card surcharges since October 6, 2022, following a class action settlement with Visa and Mastercard. According to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada’s guide to merchant surcharges, the fee cannot be more than the merchant’s actual cost of accepting the card, it is capped at 2.4%, and it has to be disclosed at the point of sale. Visa’s surcharging FAQ for Canadian businesses adds that surcharges “are not permitted on Visa debit or prepaid card transactions.”

The timing is not great for Rogers either, coming just weeks after Rogers and Telus raised wireless prices by $5.

Will you switch to paying your Rogers or Fido bill from your bank account, or is it time to shop around?

Thanks James!