What Are Interchange Fees and Who Sets Them?

Where the money goes on a card sale

When a customer pays $100 with a Visa traditional rewards credit card at your counter, the fee splits roughly like this:

The interchange figure comes from Visa's published table, in effect since April 18, 2026. The network fee is an estimate, and the markup is an example of a common interchange-plus quote. Your statement may bundle all three into one number, but the split underneath is the same.

Who sets interchange

Visa and Mastercard each publish interchange tables for the United States. The money flows to the card-issuing bank, which uses it to fund fraud losses, rewards programs, and its card business. Your processor, through its acquiring bank, pays interchange on your behalf and charges it back to you.

Visa's merchant page describes it this way: merchants do not pay interchange reimbursement fees themselves. They negotiate and pay a merchant discount to their financial institution, and interchange is the largest cost inside that discount. Both networks usually update their rates twice a year, in April and October.

American Express and Discover work differently. For most small merchants, American Express pricing reaches you through your processor under Amex's OptBlue program, with rates set by American Express.

Why the same sale costs different amounts

Interchange depends on several features of each transaction. Here are selected rates from Visa's April 2026 table:

The patterns are consistent:

• Debit costs less than credit. Regulated debit is a small fraction of the cost of a credit sale.
• Premium rewards cards cost more. The bank funds the rewards partly through interchange.
• Online and keyed sales cost more. The issuer carries more fraud risk when the card is not physically present. The full rate comparison is in why keyed and online sales cost more.
• Industry matters. Supermarkets, charities, and some other categories have their own lower rates.
• Business cards cost the most, unless the sale carries the detailed invoice data covered in our guide to Level 3 card data.

Debit cards and the Durbin amendment

Since 2011, federal law has capped debit interchange for banks with $10 billion or more in assets. The Federal Reserve sets the cap in its Regulation II, and it currently stands at 21 cents plus 0.05% of the sale, plus one cent for issuers that meet fraud-prevention standards. Smaller banks and credit unions are exempt, which is why the exempt debit rate in the table above is higher.

Regulation II also requires that each debit card can be processed over at least two unaffiliated networks, and it lets merchants choose the routing. Ask your processor whether it routes your debit sales over the lower-cost network.

What you can and cannot control

The published rates are fixed. Plenty around them is in your hands:

• Your processor's markup, which is negotiable. See our plan for negotiating lower processing fees.
• Your pricing model. On interchange-plus pricing, low interchange on debit and basic cards reaches you directly.
• How you accept cards. Chip and tap cost less than keyed entry. Online, sending address and security-code data keeps sales in the best category available.
• Settlement timing. Closing your batch every day avoids penalty categories.
• Data on business cards. Detailed invoice data can lower interchange on corporate and purchasing cards.

How to check that your processor passes interchange through at cost

If you are on interchange-plus pricing, pick three or four common categories from your statement, such as a Visa retail credit line and a debit line. Compare the rate shown with Visa's published table for the same category. If your statement shows a higher percentage for the interchange line itself, ask your processor to explain the difference in writing.