BAKU, Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan’s Central Bank has approved new payment-system tariffs that will take effect on April 1, 2027, but the infrastructure fees do not automatically translate into identical new charges for cardholders.
The tariffs apply to banks, payment operators and other participants in the country’s payment systems. They are separate from the commissions individual banks may charge customers, according to Vesti Baku.
The Central Bank announced the changes on Oct. 14. Rashad Gasimov, head of the regulator’s Payment Services and Payment Systems Development and Policy Department, said the approved fees were designed for participants in the payment infrastructure.
Under the new model, processing fees for manat-denominated card-to-card and card-funded transfers handled by the Interbank Card Center are set at fixed amounts:
| Transfer Amount | Processing Fee |
|---|---|
| Up to 100 manats | 3 gapiks |
| More than 100 to 1,000 manats | 10 gapiks |
| More than 1,000 to 10,000 manats | 50 gapiks |
| More than 10,000 to 40,000 manats | 2 manats |
| More than 40,000 manats | 4 manats |
Transfers through the Government Payment Portal will carry fees of 3 gapiks, 10 gapiks, 1 manat, 4 manats and 8 manats for the same transaction bands.
For card transfers in U.S. dollars and euros, the fixed fees will be 0.03, 0.10, 0.50, 2 or 4 dollars or euros, depending on the transaction range.
The Central Bank said maximum fees in the Real-Time Gross Settlement System, or AZIPS, would be cut in half. The ceiling in the Low Value Payments Clearing and Settlement System will fall by one-third.
Fees for the 24-hour Instant Payment System were set below those of other systems to encourage real-time transfers between bank accounts and immediate crediting of funds.
The regulator said the tariff changes were approved under Resolution No. 39/5 dated Sept. 15, 2026. The new model uses fixed fees based on transaction-value bands regardless of when a payment is processed, according to the Central Bank’s official statement.
Cardholders should therefore check their own bank’s tariff schedule. The Central Bank’s infrastructure prices alone do not establish that every customer transfer will become more expensive on April 1.