Is it legal for restaurants to set a $20 minimum to use a credit or debit card?

NO it is not illegal for restaurant to set a minimum for credit card use.

There are no laws against this. It is typically against the vendor's agreement with the credit card companies. You'd have to report it to Visa or Mastercard and then those places would have to care to enforce it.

Of course it is legal.#

It is legal to set a minimum of no more than $10, but I doubt that anyone enforces this law.

You can contact your credit card company and ask them if they can do anything about it.

Yes, it's legal.

Yep. They don't have to take them at all.

When they get paid by credit/debit card, it costs them a percentage of the total bill. So, they can do one of three obvious things (there are a number of others as well)

-- ignore the cost, raising prices to cover the difference

-- add a credit/debit card charge to the bill, rather like GST or sales tax.

-- set a minimum charge for customers

As long as they tell you which of the last two they want to use (before the service) -- the first one would be totally hidden-- they are being legal, regardless of what the smallest item for sale is.

Sure it is. It’s not a federal or state or city law that says restaurants must accept credit card. If you want to use your credit card then go somewhere else that accepts credit card with no minimum spending.

Yes. Businesses don't have to accept those cards at all, so they may certainly set a minimum charge amount.

dont sound like it, just talk to the nnanagers of the place there