Visa and Mastercard do not reprice your merchant account. They republish interchange schedules, and those wholesale rates flow into whatever pricing model you already have. Mastercard says U.S. interchange rates are typically updated semiannually. Visa's current public U.S. table is the Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees file dated 18 April 2026, rates effective April 18, 2026. Mastercard's current public U.S. table, U.S. Region Interchange Programs and Rates, is effective April 17, 2026. Read the network PDF first, then the processor letter, then recompute effective rate on the next full statement. A "Visa increase" email is not the schedule.
U.S. banks collected nearly $66 billion in interchange ("swipe") fees in 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (9 Apr 2026). That is the floor your statement sits on. April and October are when you check which layer moved.
What moved, and what did not
Card fees still have three layers. Interchange is set by the networks and paid to the issuing bank. Assessments are the networks' own dues. Processor markup is the only layer anyone competes on.
A 2026 notice can change interchange, assessments, qualification rules, or a program fee that is not interchange. It cannot change your contracted markup unless the agreement lets the processor reopen it. Processors often mail one letter that mixes a true pass-through with a markup increase. Treat those as two events.
Visa is explicit about who pays whom. Merchants do not pay interchange reimbursement fees. They pay a merchant discount to their financial institution, and that discount can include processing services on top of interchange. If a letter says "Visa is charging you," name the layer before you accept the story.
The 2026 dates you can verify
Use public network documents, not a processor recap.
- Mastercard, 17 April 2026. Current U.S. table: U.S. Region Interchange Programs and Rates, effective April 17, 2026. Mastercard's merchant page says rates are typically updated semiannually, with the public file posted around each update.
- Visa, 18 April 2026. Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees, rates effective April 18, 2026, for transactions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
- Visa, 17 April 2026. Compelling Evidence 3.0: the Merchant Business News Digest says Visa introduced an associated fee for successful CE3.0 qualifications on 17 April 2026. That page does not publish the dollar amount. Ask your acquirer for the billed line.
- Visa, 18 April 2026. Digital Commerce Authentication Program (DCAP) launched in the U.S. Enhanced data that fails Visa's quality standards will not qualify for DCAP.
- Visa, 24 October 2026. With the VisaNet Business Enhancements release, Visa will expand the Automated Fuel Dispenser (MCC 5542) 0120 acquirer confirmation advice to MCC 5541 (service stations). That is an ops date, not a new interchange column.
October is when the second half of Mastercard's cadence, and Visa's fall technical release, usually hit statements. There is no second 2026 Visa interchange PDF to quote as of this writing, so do not invent October basis-point moves. When the next public table appears, read it the same way you read April.
How to read a network notice
Open the PDF. Ignore the cover letter until the table has a date, a geography, and a product family.
- Effective date, not mail date. Visa's file is dated 18 April 2026 and says rates are effective April 18, 2026. Mastercard's file says effective April 17, 2026. Processor letters often land weeks later. Match the statement month to the effective date.
- Program name. Visa rows are fee programs (CPS/Retail, Debit; Product 2; Non-Qualified Consumer Credit). Mastercard rows are programs (Merit III Base, Key-entered, Standard). Your statement should use those names, or a mapping you can audit.
- Card type across the columns. Visa consumer credit splits Infinite, Signature Preferred, Signature, Traditional Rewards, and All Other Products. Mastercard splits Core, Enhanced Value, World, World High Value, and World Elite. A rewards mix shift can move cost with no change in the printed rate.
- Card-present versus card-not-present. Same brand, same card, different rows. Keyed and e-commerce programs price higher.
- Qualification, not the headline. Volume lookbacks, MCC, data fields, time from auth to clearing, and token or DCAP incentives decide the row you get. Visa's small-merchant consumer credit programs use a $280,000 gross Visa consumer credit sales cap, based on 12 months of Visa activity ending September 30, 2024, in the April 18, 2026 file. Miss the window and the next applicable rate applies.
- The fallback row. Visa Non-Qualified Consumer Credit is 3.15% + $0.10 on the April 18 table. Mastercard Standard consumer credit is 3.15% + $0.10 on the April 17 table. Downgrades cost more than most published basis-point tweaks.
- Footnotes. Visa regulated debit is 0.05% + $0.21, plus $0.01 if the issuer certified interim fraud-prevention standards. That is Regulation II on the page: issuers with $10 billion+ in assets are capped at 21 cents + 5 basis points, plus up to 1 cent (Federal Reserve, Regulation II). Exempt issuers are not capped, so CPS/Retail, Debit prints 0.80% + $0.15 in the exempt column.
If the notice is about assessments, FANF, or a digital-commerce service fee, it will not be in the interchange PDF. Still pass-through. Still not markup.
Illustrative: qualification vs a 2 basis-point rumor
Take $50,000 of card volume in one month. Split it in half. Figures use Visa's April 18, 2026 published rates. They are illustrative, not a quote.
| Slice | Published program | Interchange |
|---|---|---|
| $25,000 regulated debit, 500 transactions | CPS/Retail, Debit, regulated: 0.05% + $0.21 | $12.50 + $105.00 = $117.50 |
| $25,000 Traditional Rewards, card-present | Product 2: 1.65% + $0.10 (250 transactions) | $412.50 + $25.00 = $437.50 |
| Qualified interchange | $555.00 (1.11% of volume) | |
| Same $25,000 credit, fallback | Non-Qualified Consumer Credit: 3.15% + $0.10 | $787.50 + $25.00 = $812.50 |
| Debit + fallback credit | $930.00 (1.86% of volume) |
The miss from Product 2 to Non-Qualified on that credit slice is $375 in one month, before assessments and markup. That is what a notice is asking you to watch: did data, MCC, and card-present path still qualify? A letter that only says "Visa went up," with no program name, is not doing that work.
How the same table hits different statements
On interchange-plus, new interchange and assessment lines should appear as published, plus the markup you already agreed. On tiered, more volume can land mid-qualified or non-qualified even when the teaser did not move. On flat-rate, nothing on the page changes until the processor re-prices the blend. Surcharge and dual-pricing programs still sit on the same wholesale table.
After any April or October cycle, read the statement the same way you would after a switch: add every processing line, divide by gross card volume, compare that effective rate to the prior month. Typical all-in processing is often described as 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent of the transaction plus a per-item fee (U.S. Chamber of Commerce). Use that as a range check, not as your contracted rate.
If effective rate jumped and interchange-plus lines still match the public PDFs, the network moved. If interchange lines do not match, or new monthly fees appeared with a network-sounding name, that is markup until proven otherwise.
What to do in April and October
Save the public PDFs with the effective date in the filename. Save the processor notice. On the next full statement, recompute effective rate and spot-check three transactions: one regulated debit, one consumer credit card-present, one card-not-present. Confirm program name and rate against the table. Ask, in writing, which new lines are pass-through and which are markup.
For the October 24, 2026 VisaNet fuel and service-station advice change, confirm with your processor that MCC 5541 traffic will send the 0120 confirmation if you run those codes. That is an ops check, not a rate argument.
When you want the arithmetic on a real file, run the analyzer. As-billed first. Then decide whether the letter described a network table or a markup.
FAQ
When do Visa and Mastercard change interchange in 2026? Mastercard publishes that U.S. interchange rates are typically updated semiannually. Visa's current public U.S. schedule is dated 18 April 2026, rates effective April 18. Mastercard's current public U.S. table is effective April 17, 2026. Watch April and October, then recompute effective rate on the next full statement.
Do merchants pay interchange directly to Visa or Mastercard? No. Visa states that merchants do not pay interchange reimbursement fees. You pay a merchant discount to your financial institution. Interchange is a transfer between the acquirer and the issuing bank, one layer inside that discount.
If interchange goes up, can I switch processors to avoid it? You cannot negotiate interchange or assessments. Switching can change markup, junk fees, and how clearly the three layers are itemized. It does not rewrite the network table. Compare effective rate, not the headline in the notice.
How do I tell a real network change from a processor markup increase? Open the public Visa or Mastercard schedule and match program name, card type, and card-present versus card-not-present. If the new statement line is not on that table, it is not interchange. Ask for the pass-through versus markup split in writing.
What is regulated debit interchange? For debit issuers with $10 billion or more in assets, Regulation II caps the interchange the issuer may receive at 21 cents plus 5 basis points, and up to 1 cent more if fraud-prevention standards are met. Visa's April 18, 2026 table prints that as 0.05% plus $0.21, with a $0.01 footnote. Smaller issuers are exempt.
Sources
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, "Banking Analytics: Credit and Debit Card Fees Collected by Banks Rose in 2025," 9 Apr 2026: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2026/apr/banking-analytics-credit-debit-card-fees-collected-banks-rose-2025
- Visa, "Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees," rates effective April 18, 2026: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf
- Visa, "Credit Card Processing Fees & Interchange Rates" (merchant discount vs interchange): https://usa.visa.com/support/small-business/regulations-fees.html
- Visa, Merchant Business News Digest (CE3.0 fee 17 Apr 2026; DCAP U.S. launch 18 Apr 2026; VisaNet AFD/MCC 5541 advice 24 Oct 2026): https://www.visa.com/en-us/resources/visa-merchant-business-news-digest
- Mastercard, "Interchange rates and fees" (typically updated semiannually): https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/business/support/merchant-interchange-rates.html
- Mastercard, "U.S. Region Interchange Programs and Rates," effective April 17, 2026: https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/mccom/us/business/documents/merchant-rates-2026-2027-april2026.pdf
- Federal Reserve, Regulation II small-entity compliance guide (21 cents + 5 basis points, plus up to 1 cent; $10 billion issuer exemption): https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/regiicg.htm
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "How to Calculate Credit Card Processing Fees" (typical 1.5% to 3.5% range): https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/finance/calculate-credit-card-fees
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