Recover Credit Card Processing Costs with Dockwa Surcharging

Credit card processing fees are a real cost of doing business at a marina — and for high-ticket transactions like fuel ups, they add up fast. A single $1,400 fuel up generates roughly $50 in card processing fees. Multiply that across a busy season and you're looking at a significant margin hit that most operators quietly absorb.

Dockwa now supports credit card surcharging, giving marinas the option to pass up to 3% of credit card transaction costs back to their customers. Here's how it works, where it applies, and what you need to know before you turn it on.

What Surcharging Does

When surcharging is enabled, a labeled fee — up to 3% — is automatically added to credit card payments. The surcharge appears as its own line item on printed and emailed receipts, so there's no ambiguity about what the boater is paying.

Boaters who want to avoid the surcharge can pay with a debit card, cash, check, or ACH. Debit cards, prepaid cards, and government cards are automatically detected at the point of payment and never surcharged — this is a federal requirement, not an optional setting, and Dockwa handles the detection automatically.

Where It Applies (And Where It Doesn't)

Surcharging is available on three transaction types: contracts, POS, and fuel. It does not apply to transient reservations made through the Dockwa boater network. The Dockwa network requires consistent all-in pricing for boaters, so transient reservation pricing stays as-is.

Surcharging is not available in the following states and territories: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Canada. If your marina is in one of these locations, the surcharge setting will not appear in your portal.

Visa caps surcharges at the lesser of your cost of acceptance or 3%. Mastercard caps at 4%. Because most marinas accept both networks, the Visa cap governs — and Dockwa hard-codes 3% as the maximum allowed rate.

How to Set It Up

Dockwa marinas can set up surcharging in four simple steps:

1. Create a fee-type item in Items. Tip: Name it something boaters will recognize on their receipt (for example, "Credit Card Surcharge"). Set the item availability to "Surcharge." If your state taxes surcharges, add a tax rate here.

2. Navigate to Settings → Credit Card Surcharges. Select the item you just created and enter your rate — up to 3%.

3. Choose which invoice types to enable. You can turn on surcharging for Contracts, POS and Fuel, or both. One rate applies to everything you enable.

4. Click Save. From that point forward, credit card payments on enabled invoice types will include the surcharge.

What Compliance Means For Marinas

Dockwa takes care of the guardrails: enforcing rate caps, detecting and excluding exempt cards automatically, and surfacing the surcharge clearly on receipts. Signage requirements, state rules, and overall compliance responsibility sit with the marina.

A few requirements to be aware of before enabling surcharging:

• Post signage at entry and payment points. Card brand rules require boaters to know about the surcharge before they pay — a sign at the marina entrance and at each point of payment covers this.
• Check your state's cap. Colorado, for example, limits surcharges to 2%. Dockwa allows up to 3%, so it's worth a quick check before setting your rate.
• Refund the surcharge when you refund a sale. It's part of the transaction, so it comes back too.
• Give your staff a quick heads up. A mention before running a card — and knowing that debit, cash, or ACH avoids the surcharge — saves friction at the dock.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does surcharging apply to debit cards?

No. Debit, prepaid, and government cards are automatically detected and excluded at payment. Marinas don't need to configure this.

Can marinas set different rates for contracts versus fuel?

No. A single rate applies across all invoice types you enable. Marinas can choose which types to include, but the rate is the same for all of them.

I've been adding a convenience fee on contracts — is this different?

Surcharging is the same concept under a clearer, card-brand-compliant name. Dockwa recommends renaming any existing "convenience fee" line items. If your current rate is above 3%, it will continue running as-is until you interact with a surcharge setting, at which point you must bring it to 3% or lower before saving.

What if I'm not sure whether surcharging is legal in my state?

Check with your legal or financial advisor. The surcharge setting will not appear in a marina's Dockwa portal if located in a blocked state, but state rules can be complex, especially for marinas operating across multiple jurisdictions.

If surcharging makes sense for your operation, you can enable it now in your Dockwa portal under Settings → Credit Card Surcharges.

If you're not already using Dockwa to manage your contracts, POS or fuel and you'd like to see what that would look like for your marina, we'd love to show you around. Book a demo in seconds →