What it really costs to take payments online in Armenia

On 9 February 2026 the Central Bank of Armenia capped card commissions for businesses with annual turnover up to ֏150M: at most 0.5% on ArCa cards and 0.9% on Visa and Mastercard, in force from 1 March 2026.

The cap applies to physical POS terminals — the device on the counter. Every bank tariff sheet that implements it says so, and every bank keeps its online (vPOS) rates in the 1.5–3.5% range alongside the capped POS column. If you sell online — a subscription, a course, an app — you are on the uncapped rates below. Most founders have seen the “0.5% / 0.9%” headline and assume it applies to them. It does not, unless your bank agrees to it in your contract; it is worth asking.

Central Bank of Armenia Board decision № 27-Ն of 9 February 2026. Reported by armbanks.am, 12 Feb 2026 and finport.am.

Usually by half or more. On an ArCa card there is no Stripe option at all. Small payments are where Stripe hurts most: its fixed 30¢ alone is more than 5% of a ֏2,000 sale.

A foreign customer is closer. Stripe wins when the card is domestic to the Stripe account — a US card on a US account, a European card on a European one — mostly on one-off sales above roughly ֏8,000–20,000. The reason is the bank, not Ronda: an Armenian bank charges about 3% on any foreign card, while that card costs Stripe the least. A foreign card from anywhere else is cheaper through Ronda.

And every cell leaves out the company. Stripe does not serve Armenia, so it needs one abroad — at the cheapest, a Delaware LLC through Stripe Atlas: $500 to form it, then about $799 a year (registered agent $100, Delaware tax $400, the Form 5472 filing a foreign owner must make every year from $299 — miss it and the penalty is $25,000). Plus a wire home for each payout. On a small business that is several percent on its own.

The bank rates are Evocabank's published grid, and the conversion is Ameriabank's published non-cash rates; Stripe's are its list prices, read 25 September 2026, priced in the account's own currency — price in dram and Stripe adds 1% (US) or 2% (EU) more. Not counted on the bank side: a monthly minimum where one applies (Evocabank: ֏3,000 under ֏200,000 a month). Foreign cards carry one more unknown: their approval rate on Armenian acquiring is not published by anyone, and we measure it rather than promise it.

The honest reading: for an Armenian customer, a local bank plus Ronda is about 3%–3.4% all-in on Evocabank's grid, and no foreign processor can take an ArCa card at all. For a foreign customer it depends on where their card is domestic — the table above has every case.

Three different costs hide under “international”. A foreign card paying a dram price costs you the bank's foreign-card tier: 2.7% at Ameriabank, about 3% elsewhere. The customer's own bank converts and may add a foreign-transaction fee of up to about 3% on their side, even when the price is in dollars. A price in USD or EUR is allowed only for customers outside Armenia, and only where your bank offers it: Ameriabank's terms allow the foreign currencies it offers, and IDBank offers a separate foreign-currency vPOS for cards issued abroad. What none of them publishes is the rate when a dollar sale lands in a dram account, so ask whether a USD account avoids conversion altogether. Approval rates for foreign cards on Armenian acquiring are not published anywhere; Ronda logs every decline reason, so once you are live you will know yours.

The law on currency, who converts at each step, and a $20 subscription worked five ways: Selling abroad from Armenia. When the money reaches you, bank by bank: When does my money actually arrive?

1.5% of live volume, for the software — recurring billing, retries, the API and the dashboard. It is separate from your bank's fee: the bank settles straight to your account, and we never mark up or sit inside that flow. How the fee works →