The content of this article is provided for informational purposes only. You should always obtain independent business, tax, financial, and legal advice before making any business decision.
The card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, etc.) introduce and make updates to their operating rules throughout the year. Most of the changes come during two release periods – Spring and Fall.
These network updates typically include fee introductions or updates, new mandates, new features, program changes, or updates to existing features.
While many of the updates require no action for merchants, some updates can require integration changes, fee impact, or forced adoption of services.
PayPal Braintree teams have worked together to identify the key updates for April 2026 and beyond and these updates are below. The updates provide the nature of the update (fee change, mandate, new feature/update), the network implementing the change, and the regions in scope.
NOTE: The information in this document is accurate as of April 2026, provided for informational purposes, subject to change, and may not apply to all merchants or transactions.
Type: Program Change
Region: Global
Effective Dates: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Merchant awareness of new fraud/dispute thresholds.
Effective: April 1, 2026, the merchant VAMP threshold will drop from 220bps to 150bps.
Program Thresholds and Fines
Acquirer Early Warning
Acquirer Above Standard
Acquirer Excessive
Merchant Excessive
Merchants should be aware that if their acquirer breaches VAMP thresholds, then fines will be applied to merchants with a VAMP ratio of 50bps or higher:
Type: Program & Fee Change
Region: US
Effective Dates: February 24, 2026; March 3, 2026; April 2026
Merchant Impact: Visa making additional changes to the CEDP program and sunsetting interchange incentive for Level 2 transaction data.
4/18/26 – Level 2 interchange programs for Small Business and Commercial Credit products will be phased out.
Visa released an update on 2/19/26 which made the following changes to CEDP:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, US, CA, CEMEA, LAC
Effective Dates: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of increased fee
Visa is raising the Non-Domestic Settlement Currency fee is EU, US, CA, LAC, and CEMEA. The fee applies when a transaction settles in a different currency than the local currency of the merchant.
For Europe, the fee applies to intra-European transactions and international transactions. Visa is raising the fee 5bps over the next 3 years.
For US, CA, LAC, and CEMEA, the fee is increasing 10bps to 25 bps effective April 1, 2026.
Type: Fee Changes
Region: EU
The Visa E-Commerce Experience (“Vee”) is a multi-year initiative designed to improve performance and security of e-commerce transactions. Vee aims to standardize and elevate transaction quality through tokenization, enhanced authentication, improved data quality, and intelligent risk scoring.
As part of Vee, Visa is updating 3 fees in the EU:
Fee are determined by Groups below:
Group A:
Group B:
3DS Fee Details
Visa is changing the rate for 3DS authentication requests in EU. The fee is charged per 3DS request.
Effective Date: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of increased and variation of fee
Current Fee: EUR 0.02
Fee Name: VISA SECURE ACQUIRER AUTHENTICATION FEE
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Data Quality can be met by populating required 3DS mandated 3DS data fields by device channel:
Browser:
In-App:
E-Commerce Token Facilitation Fee
The VTS Acquirer Authentication Service fee is being renamed the E-Commerce Token Facilitation Fee and the fee will be updated.
Effective Date: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of name change and increased fee
Current Fee: EUR 0.02
Updated Fee:
New Fee Name:
E-Commerce Token Facilitation Fee:
E-Commerce Token Facilitation Fee:
Digital Commerce Services Fee
Visa is introducing the Digital Commerce Services Fee (DCSF) in the EU. The DCSF is a bundle of services provide by Visa for a flat fee. Visa will no longer bill for these services individually and merchants can use them as much as they want.
Effective Date: April 1, 2027
Merchant Impact: Awareness of services in bundle and new fee
Bundles services included in DCSF:
Fee Details:
New Fee Name:
Digital Commerce Services Fee:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU
Effective Date: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of increased fee for using zero-dollar authorizations to verify customer’s payment credentials.
Visa is making improvements to account verification messages and raising rates. Account Verification (AV) messages are zero-amount authentication transactions used by merchants to verify payment credentials.
Improvements:
Revised Pricing:
Domestic AV:
Intraregional AV:
Interregional AV:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, US, CA, CEMA
Effective Date: April 25, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of increased fees for cross-border excessive retry attempts.
Visa is raising the rates for cross-border excessive retry attempts is EU, US, CA, and CEMEA. Merchants are allowed a certain number of retries on declined transactions before incurring fees for excessive retries.
Fee Applies:
Current Fee: $0.15
Updated Fee: $0.25
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, US, CA, CEMA
Effective Date: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of new services available and increased fee
Visa will add 4 services to the Digital Commerce Services Fee (DCSF) in the US and increase pricing. The DCFS was introduced in the US in October 2023 and included Account Verification Service (AVS), Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2), and Merchant-Initiated Transaction (MIT) Service. The fee is charged on every authentication attempt.
Services Added as of April 1, 2026:
Current pricing: 0.75 bps with $0.0075 min per authentication attempt.
Updated pricing:
Effective Date:
4/1/26:
4/1/27:
Type: Fee Change
Region: AP
Effective Date: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of new services available and increased fee
Visa will add new services to the Digital Commerce Services Fee in certain countries in the Asia Pacific region and increase pricing. The fee was introduced to certain countries in the AP region in July 2025 and was called the Digital Commerce Fee. The services included the fee included:
Visa will be adding the following services to the renamed Digital Commerce Services Fee (DCSF) and will no longer bill for these services separately:
Applicable to: Brunei, Cambodia, Guam, Laos, Malaysia, Micronesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.
Visa will revise pricing of the DCSF:
Current Fee: 0.75bps
Updated Fee:
Domestic:
Cross-border:
Type: Fee Change
Region: US
Effective Date: April 18, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of new interchange incentive program
Launch of the Digital Commerce Authentication Program
DCAP is an optional program which provides Consumer Credit interchange incentives for qualified Consumer Credit CNP transactions. Transactions must be tokenized and share the following enhanced data:
New Consumer Credit Interchange Incentive Tiers
Token only:
Enhanced Data (meeting DCAP Requirements):
Enhanced Data and EMV Token:
New Enhanced Data Program Fee
Effective 4/18/26, Visa will introduce a new Enhanced Data Program Fee in the US on transactions with enhanced data.
Fee: 5bps (0.05%)
Type: Fee Change
Region: CA
Effective Date: June 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of services available and new fee
Effective 6/1/26, Visa will introduce the Digital Commerce Services Fee in CA and it will include the following services:
These will no longer be billed separately as of 6/1/26.
Effective Date:
6/1/26
4/1/27
Type: Fee Change
Region: AP/CAN/LAC/MEA/US
Effective Dates: April 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of change in fee applicability
Effective April 1, 2026, any preauthorization request that is subsequently followed by one or more incremental preauthorization will be excluded from the Not Reversed or Cleared Preauthorization TPE program.
Additionally, for preauthorizations where no clearing message is submitted, acquirers must ensure a full reversal is submitted within 30 days from original auth date.
Type: Fee Change
Region: US
Effective Date: April 6, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of additional services and updated fee structure
Mastercard is adding services to the Digital Enablement Fee (DEF) and updating the billing structure. The DEF is a bundle of services included in one fee charged at authorization. Mastercard will no longer line-item bill for services included in the DEF.
New services:
Updated billing structure effective April 6, 2026:
Transaction Amount
Less than or equal to $100:
Greater than $100-$2000:
Greater than or equal to $2000:
Current services included in DEF:
Type: Fee Change
Region: CA, EU, JP, AP/LAC/US
Effective Dates: May 1, 2026; June 3, 2026; Oct 1, 2026; January 1, 2029
Merchant Impact: Awareness of fees
Mastercard is updating a fee and introducing new Specialty Merchant Registration Program fees:
Fee Type:
Specialty Merchant Registration*
Specialty Merchant Transaction Fee
Specialty Merchant Volume Fee
*Updated fee; remaining fees are new
Effective Dates of Fees:
Date: 5/1/26
Date: 6/1/26
Date: 6/3/26
Date: 6/3/26
Date: 10/1/26
Date: 1/1/29
Fee will be applied on any purchase transaction for:
Exclusions:
Specialty Merchants:
Non face to face adult content and services:
Non face to face gambling:
Non face to face pharmaceutical:
Non face to face tobacco:
Government owned lottery (US):
Government owned lottery (non-US):
Skill games:
High-risk cyberblockers:
Recreational cannabis (Canada only):
High risk securities:
Cryptocurrency:
Negative Option billing selling physical products:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU
Effective Date: October 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of new fee
Mastercard is introducing the Not Reversed or Cleared Preauthorization TPE program in Europe. Fee applies when an approved preauthorization is not cleared or fully reversed within 30 calendar days from the authorization date.
Transaction Amount:
Greater than or equal to EUR 12.00
Less than EUR 12.00
This fee is live in rest of world.
Fee is not applicable when the:
Type: Fee Changes
Region: EU
Effective Date: October 12, 2026
Merchant Impact: Awareness of revised fee
Mastercard is updating the billing for the Acquirer Exemption Indicator. The AEI is used to identify transactions which are exempt from Strong Customer Authentication under PSD2. It is necessary to inform issuers an exemption is being used to prevent the issuer from declining the transaction due to lack of SCA.
Current Fee: 0.02 EUR
Updated Fee Structure:
Fee will apply to both approved and declined transactions.
For domestic and intraregional transactions, the fee applies to all exemptions except:
For interregional, fee only applies to: