Level 3 Credit Card Processing What it is, what changed in 2026, and what it saves a B2B business
When a business customer pays your invoice with a corporate or purchasing card, the data your system sends with that payment decides what it costs you. Send full Level 3 data and Visa’s rate on those cards drops by nearly a full percentage point. Most B2B companies are not getting it, and almost none of them know.
Written by Robert Day, just under 30 years in credit card processing, including more than a decade as an executive at Fifth Third Processing Solutions, later Vantiv and Worldpay, now part of Global Payments.
What is Level 3 credit card processing?
Every card payment carries data. The “level” describes how much. Consumer payments only ever need the basics. Business payments made with corporate, purchasing and fleet cards can carry much more, because the companies that issue those cards want invoice-level detail for their own accounting. The card networks reward the merchant who supplies it with a lower interchange rate, and interchange makes up 80 to 90 percent of what it costs to accept a card.
| Level | What the payment carries | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Card number, amount, date and merchant details | Every card payment |
| Level 2 | Level 1, plus sales tax amount, a customer code or purchase order number, and postal codes | Business and government cards |
| Level 3 | Level 2, plus line items from the invoice: product code, description, quantity, unit of measure, unit price, line totals, freight and discounts | Corporate, purchasing and fleet cards, and now Visa business cards |
In plain terms, Level 3 means your payment arrives looking like the invoice it pays. That is exactly the information your ERP or billing system already has. The question is whether it ever reaches the card network.
What Level 3 saves on a B2B invoice
Here are Visa’s own published rates for corporate and purchasing cards. The difference between the bottom row and the top row is the difference between sending Level 3 data and not sending it.
| Visa corporate and purchasing card category | Interchange rate |
|---|---|
| Commercial Product 3 (Level 3 data) | 1.75% + $0.10 |
| Commercial Card Present | 2.50% + $0.10 |
| Commercial Card Not Present | 2.70% + $0.10 |
Source: Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees, rates effective April 18, 2026. The networks publish new rates every April and October, so check the current schedule before relying on any single figure.
One invoice, two outcomes
A customer pays a $50,000 invoice with a Visa purchasing card through your payment portal. Sent without Level 3 data, it settles as card not present: $1,350.10 in interchange. Sent with full Level 3 data, it settles at the Product 3 rate: $875.10, plus Visa’s 0.05 percent program fee of $25, for $900.10. That is $450 saved on a single invoice.
Across $5 million a year of Visa corporate and purchasing card receipts, the same gap is worth about $45,000 a year, every year.
Figures are illustrative. Actual savings depend on your card mix, your data quality and how your processor prices your account.
For a credit manager this matters twice. Customers who pay by card pay faster, which helps your days sales outstanding. But every one of those payments costs the company a percentage, and without Level 3 data the company pays nearly a full point more on the cards business customers use most.
What changed: Visa CEDP and the end of Level 2
Visa rebuilt its commercial card program between 2025 and 2026 under the name Commercial Enhanced Data Program, or CEDP. If your company set up Level 2 or Level 3 processing before 2025, it is probably no longer set up correctly.
A new program fee
Visa introduced a 0.05 percent participation fee on commercial payments sent with enhanced data. Processors pay it to Visa and typically pass it through to the merchant.
Level 3 became Product 3
The old Level 3 rates were replaced by Product 3 rates, and Visa business cards became eligible alongside corporate and purchasing cards. The lower rate goes to “verified” merchants, meaning those that send clean data consistently, either 500 successful CEDP transactions or 20 consecutive days of them. Until then, transactions settle at standard rates.
Visa ended Level 2
Visa discontinued its separate Level 2 rates. On Visa commercial cards, sending only Level 2 data no longer earns a lower rate. The saving now requires full line-item data that passes Visa’s checks, including the arithmetic: quantity times unit price, plus tax and shipping, has to equal the amount charged.
Level 2 and Level 3 still count
Mastercard still rewards both Level 2 and Level 3 data, but tightened its unit-of-measure requirements in October 2025. Data that met the old standard may not meet the new one.
For the full Visa picture, see our guides to what Visa CEDP costs you and what merchants should know about CEDP.
Why B2B companies miss the Level 3 rate
In our audits the reason is rarely that nobody tried. It is that one link in the chain quietly breaks.
The gateway cannot send it
Many gateways, and many ERP and ecommerce integrations, pass only the basics. The data exists in your system but never leaves it.
The data fails validation
Placeholder line items, missing units of measure, or totals that do not add up cause transactions to fall back to the higher rate without any warning.
It was set up for the old rules
An account configured for Level 2 before 2025 now earns nothing extra on Visa. Nobody tells you the rules changed underneath it.
The processor keeps the difference
On tiered or bundled pricing, a lower interchange rate can simply become more margin for the processor. Only true interchange-plus pricing passes the saving to you.
What it looks like in a real account
The $80,000 gateway upgrade that unlocked $1.8 million
A US animal health and pharmaceutical manufacturer processed about $425 million a year in card payments, almost all business to business, with an average ticket near $3,000. Its markup was competitive and its statement was clean. But its gateway could not send the data that qualified its transactions for the lowest interchange rates.
We recommended a gateway that cost about $80,300 more a year. It recovered about $1.84 million a year in interchange and took the effective rate from 2.87 percent to 2.31 percent.
How to check whether you are getting the Level 3 rate
- Find your commercial card lines. On your processing statement, look for interchange categories naming Product 3 or Level 3 data, such as VI-US BUS TR5 PRD 3 or MC Business Level 3 Data Rate II. If your business customers pay by card and those lines are missing, the data is not getting through.
- Look for “card not present” and “standard” on commercial cards. Large volume in those categories usually means payments that could have qualified did not.
- Ask what your gateway sends. Ask your processor, in writing, whether your gateway and your ERP integration send full line-item data on every commercial card payment.
- Check your pricing model. If you are not on interchange-plus pricing, a better interchange rate may never reach you.
Or skip the homework. Our statement decoder explains individual line items, and an audit checks all of them at once.
We do the work. You get the savings.
weAudit is America’s #1 Credit Card Processing Auditing Firm, and our team came from inside the processors. We audit your statements, find where commercial card payments are missing the Level 3 rate, fix the setup with your existing processor or a new one, and keep auditing monthly because the rules move twice a year.
- The first audit is free, so you can see the number before anyone asks for budget.
- Our fee is flat and never a percentage of savings, so the savings stay with your company.
- We take no revenue share, referral arrangement or financial tie from any processor or ISO, so the advice is not for sale.
Weighing whether to pass card costs to customers instead? See our surcharging guidance first, and read about ACH processing fees for customers who pay by bank transfer.
Frequently asked questions
What is Level 3 credit card processing?
Level 3 processing sends invoice line-item detail, such as product codes, quantities, units of measure and unit prices, along with a business card payment. Card networks reward that data with lower interchange rates on corporate, purchasing, fleet and, for Visa, business cards.
How much does Level 3 processing save?
On Visa corporate and purchasing cards, the Level 3 rate in Visa’s April 2026 schedule is 1.75% plus $0.10, against 2.70% plus $0.10 for card-not-present payments without enhanced data. After Visa’s 0.05 percent program fee, that is roughly 0.9 percent of each qualifying payment.
Does Visa still offer Level 2 rates?
No. Visa discontinued its separate Level 2 rates in April 2026 as part of its Commercial Enhanced Data Program. On Visa commercial cards the lower rate now requires full Level 3 line-item data. Mastercard still rewards both Level 2 and Level 3 data.
What do I need to process Level 3 payments?
A gateway and integration that can send line-item data from your ERP or billing system, data that passes the networks’ validation checks, and pricing from your processor that passes the lower interchange through to you.
How do I know if my payments qualify for Level 3?
Check your processing statement for interchange categories naming Product 3 or Level 3 data. If business customers pay you by card and those categories are missing or small, most of your commercial card payments are settling at higher rates.
Find out what your commercial card payments are costing you
Send us a recent processing statement and we will show you where the money is going. No cost, no obligation.
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