Content Overview
Common reasons for incurring the SIF and how to avoid it:
The Visa System Integrity Fees were introduced in April 2021, with rates set at $0.10 for domestic card transactions and $0.15 for international card transactions. The two fees related to the System Integrity Fees are the ‘Never Approve’ and ‘Excessive Declines’ fees.
The ‘Never Approve’ fee applies when a transaction is attempted on a card that the Issuer will never approve, such as due to an invalid card number (examples provided in the table below). This fee is incurred for each attempt after the first.
The ‘Excessive Decline’ fee occurs when a transaction is attempted more than 15 times. This fee begins on the 16th attempt within a rolling 30-day period.
These fees will appear on merchant statements as follows:
- Visa Never Approve Reattempt Domestic Card Fee
- Visa Never Approve Reattempt International Card Fee
- Visa Excessive Decline Reattempt Domestic Card Fee
- Visa Excessive Decline Reattempt International Card Fee
Common reasons for incurring the SIF and how to avoid it
For additional information, review the Decline Response Codes here.
For additional information on Visa Transaction Integrity Fees, see here.