||| FROM WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||
Starting Sunday, March 1, 2026, a card payment fee of 3% will be applied to all card transactions. Fares, no-show fees, and carpool and vanpool permits will be subject to the 3% fee.
This fee was directed by the Washington State Legislature (RCW 47.60.860) to help recover the cost the state incurs when processing cards online and at terminals.
See our ticket information page for a full list of accepted payment options.
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After getting my annual license plate renewal notice, and my 2026 property tax bill, I was thinking about how I always send in a paper check to avoid the fee. It’s one of the only times that I bother using paper checks anymore, because what seems like a small 3% fee would add up to hundreds of dollars over the years.
It’s amazing how the credit card processors collection so much money just to process a transaction. Millions of dollars moving from the pockets of Washington taxpayers to banks and credit card companies, who are running an almost completely automated system while getting rich off of extortionate fees.
The state should consider developing its own payment portal, perhaps in cooperation with Oregon and California. Get the fee down to 1% – it could collectively save a lot of money for taxpayers.
Cash is still an option here and is always the better choice. Paying for everything with a credit card just siphons money out of our local economy. Almost every local person or business I deal with gets cash from me.
Eventually we will be forced into a cashless economy so we will be more maleable to the whims of government but for now you can do your part to keep your right to pay cash by exercising it.
In this case, I expect this will cost the state even more as people fumble for change at the already overloaded ferry booth. Our legislators seem have a very difficult time with second and third order thinking.
An easy way to protest this is to pay cash. If everyone did that instead of using a credit card we would soon find out if the additional time it takes to collect and deposit the cash is economically feasible, and /or disruptive to the ferry schedule
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, as later amended by Section 1075 (the Durbin Amendment), amended the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) by adding Section 920.
To implement Section 920, the Federal Reserve Board issued Regulation II (12 CFR Part 235). This regulation reinforces that merchants cannot add a surcharge to debit card transactions, even if the card is processed as “credit” (signature-based) rather than using a PIN.
https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/merchant-surcharging-qa-for-web.pdf
Can I assess a surcharge on purchases made using both credit and debit card?
▪ No. The ability to surcharge only applies to purchases made with a credit card and, even then, only under certain conditions. U.S. merchants cannot surcharge purchases made using a Visa debit card or prepaid card.
Can I assess a surcharge on debit card transactions where the debit cardholder chooses “credit” on the point-of-sale terminal?
▪ No. The cardholder is still using a Visa debit card. The option to select a ‘credit or debit’ refers to the cardholder selecting either a signature-based transaction or a PIN-based transaction.
And the WS Ferry system gets a 3% increase in revenue. And we get to pay 3% more in fares. Are fares set or approved by the legislature? Or is this a unilateral fare increase?
Pay with cash!!!!!
The Durbin amendment to Dodd-Frank made it illegal for merchants to charge a fee to use a debit card. That is Federal law. I don’t see how WSF can legally get away with charging us 3% to use a debit card.
I’ll be paying cash if they try to go forward with this illegal plan and I urge everyone else to do so as well.
Ken, I spent an hour researching this the other night and I agree with you. From my understanding, even if the debit card is processed through the credit network (i.e. with no PIN, “run as credit”), they still may not charge the cardholder a fee. Probably a good time to send an email to our three suits in Olympia. It would be nice if they would just fix this now instead of letting it go to court and cost us even more.