Lancaster Online Op-Ed: Swipe Fees Take Toll on Small Businesses

MAY 24, 2026



Baseball season is underway, and fans are flocking to ballparks across the country. But for Pennsylvania’s small businesses, this season brings a different kind of double play — inflation and soaring credit card swipe fees that keep taking a bigger bite out of every sale.

The latest Consumer Price Index shows inflation climbing again, with consumer prices rising 3.8% over the past year — the sharpest increase since May 2023. Small businesses get hit twice — first by inflation and then by “swipeflation,” credit card fees that take a percentage of every transaction no matter how thin the business’s profit margin may be.

Every time a customer pays with a credit card, the business pays a fee — typically 2–4% of the transaction. When prices rise, those fees rise automatically. Card networks do not provide additional services as inflation increases; they just get more money in fees, profiting from the inflation pain that hits everyone.

Pennsylvania businesses pay billions each year in credit card swipe fees. An estimated $312 million of that comes from fees charged on the sales tax portion of transactions alone — money businesses collect for the government but never keep yet still pay a percentage on every transaction.

A new video highlights how credit card swipe fees are driving up the cost of America’s favorite pastime. A beer and hot dog at a Phillies game can easily cost close to $20. Credit card companies take roughly 4% off the top of the nearly $3 billion spent on concessions at stadiums nationwide — amounting to about $120 million a year in swipe fees from concessions alone. And that figure does not even include the fees attached to game tickets, parking, or the gas fans buy to get to the stadium.

A 3.8% inflation bump turns that $20 concession tab into $20.76, and the 2–4% credit card fee on that higher price rises right along with it — adding another $0.02 to $0.03 per transaction. Multiply those extra cents across thousands of transactions a game, and what looks like pocket change adds up to a significant drain on already thin margins.

Consumers rarely see these fees, but they pay for them. Businesses build swipe costs into the price of goods and services, making it harder to understand why prices keep rising — or how much the payments system contributes to those increases.

Small businesses, including the 1.2 million in Pennsylvania, also lack meaningful negotiating power. Two dominant credit card networks control most transactions and set the terms. Large retailers may secure better rates, but most small businesses cannot. They accept the rules or risk losing customers. It is no surprise, then, that small business groups like the National Federation of Independent Business have raised concerns about these growing costs.

Against that backdrop Pennsylvania policymakers are considering House Bill 2090, which would prohibit card networks from charging swipe fees on the sales tax portion of transactions — returning an estimated $312 million to Pennsylvania merchants and consumers.

At its core, this is about fairness. When costs rise, small businesses take the first hit. The structure of swipe fees ensures they take a second — automatically and invisibly.

Inflation does not just hit Pennsylvania small businesses once. It hits them twice.

And right now, that double play keeps running up the score.

Karen Harned is a small business advocate and former executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center. For more information on credit card swipe fees and how you can avoid them, visit her website at swipeflation.com. 

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