SBI Card adds a 1% fee on transport payments over ₹30,000 and on fuel above ₹50,000 a cycle from 1 December 2026
From 1 December 2026, every SBI credit card charges 1% on each transportation transaction above ₹30,000, and 1% on your whole fuel spend once it crosses ₹50,000 in a billing cycle. Here is how the two rules differ and who pays.
In this article
SBI Card posted a customer notice on 27 October 2026 adding two new charges from 1 December 2026. They apply to SBI credit cards across variants, and CardInsider names Flipkart SBI and BPCL SBI Octane among them. The notice on sbicard.com is the source for every figure below; CardInsider and Upstox report the same rules.
The two new charges
| Transportation | Fuel | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | 1% of the transaction amount | 1% of your total fuel spend in the cycle |
| Trigger | Each single transaction above ₹30,000 | Total fuel spend in one billing cycle above ₹50,000 |
| Counted how | Per transaction | Per billing cycle, all fuel transactions added up |
| Merchant codes (MCCs) | 4111, 4784, 4131 | 5172, 5541, 5542, 5983 |
| Effective | 1 December 2026 | 1 December 2026 |
Taxes are charged on top, per Upstox.
The fuel rule bites harder than it looks
The transport fee only touches a single large payment. The fuel fee works differently: once your fuel spend in a cycle passes ₹50,000, the 1% applies to all of it, not just the part above the line.
| Fuel spend in one cycle | New fee |
|---|---|
| ₹50,000 | ₹0 |
| ₹60,000 | ₹600 |
| ₹1,00,000 | ₹1,000 |
So ₹50,000 costs nothing extra and ₹50,001 costs about ₹500. Upstox works the same ₹60,000 example to ₹600.
What counts as transportation
The three codes in the notice are 4111 (local and suburban commuter transport), 4784 (tolls and bridge fees) and 4131 (bus lines), as CardInsider describes them. Upstox notes the card networks assign these codes and can change them, and SBI's notice says such changes need not be communicated to customers. If a payment codes under one of these and is above ₹30,000 on its own, the 1% applies.
What it means for you
- Fleet owners, taxi operators and anyone fuelling more than ₹50,000 a month on an SBI card: keep each cycle's fuel spend at or under ₹50,000 on SBI, or move the excess to another card. Check what your card's fuel surcharge waiver and rewards actually return before deciding the 1% is worth paying.
- Paying a large transport or toll bill in one go? Compare the 1% against what another card earns on that merchant code before you pay.
- Under those thresholds? Nothing changes for you.
Not sure which card in your wallet should take your fuel and transport spend now? Ask Polo Brain, or find a better fit with Polo Match.
Sources
Every claim on this page is backed by a primary or reputable source.
Cards affected
Card figures on CardPolo come from our catalog, each with an issuer source and a verified date where we have checked it. Spot something out of date? Tell us at [email protected].
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