Are RuPay Credit Card UPI Payments Under the 0.4% MDR?

Published: 3 October 2026

No. From 15 October 2026 the 0.4% UPI MDR is for a payment that leaves a bank account and lands with a shop. A RuPay credit card on UPI is a card payment that happens to use the UPI screen. It is outside that 0.4% table. The government and NPCI said the same in the September FAQ: credit on UPI follows card rules.

The customer still approves with a UPI PIN. That does not make it a normal UPI transfer. The shop is paid by the card rails. The fee is whatever the card agreement says, which is often higher than 0.4%, and it is not capped at ₹300 by this UPI rule.

Two Bills at the Same Counter

• Customer pays ₹5,000 from a savings account. Standard shop: about ₹20 MDR under the new rule.
• Same ₹5,000, but the app is using a RuPay credit card. Not ₹20. The acquirer’s card rate applies. One bank notice to merchants has quoted about 1.93% with no UPI cap, for categories outside its industry list, plus GST on that fee. Your rate is the notice from your bank, not that one figure.

A pre-approved credit line on UPI is in the same bucket. It is not the 0.4% schedule. PhonePe, Google Pay or Paytm cannot add a platform fee on a normal UPI payment. A card payment can still carry the card MDR.

What the Shop Should Ask

Ask the acquirer which of your UPI receipts are account payments and which are credit-card payments. The settlement should separate them. If a credit-card line is priced like 0.4%, or an account payment is priced like a card, that is a mismatch to raise with the bank. The homepage table does not price credit on UPI.

The rate table and calculator stay on the homepage.