In 2009 the US Government Accountability Office counted the interchange rate categories Visa and Mastercard used to price credit card transactions. It found 303. Nobody has updated that count since. We did.
Using the GAO’s own counting rule, applied to the schedules both networks published in April 2026, the number today is 640. The growth is not evenly split. Mastercard has barely changed. Visa has multiplied more than sixfold.
Counted August 2026 from “Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees” (effective 18 April 2026) and “Mastercard 2026–2027 U.S. Region Interchange Programs and Rates” (effective 17 April 2026). Baseline figures from GAO-10-45, November 2009, Table 2. The counting method is set out in full below so anyone can reproduce or challenge it.
The figures, in brief
640 domestic credit interchange categories across Visa and Mastercard in the April 2026 schedules, counted on the GAO’s 2009 basis. The GAO counted 303 in 2009. The two networks had 8 between them in 1991.
378 Visa categories in 2026, against 60 in 2009. A rise of 530 percent.
262 Mastercard categories in 2026, against 243 in 2009. A rise of 8 percent across the same seventeen years.
3.15% and 3.30% the highest domestic credit rate a downgraded transaction can reach in 2026, on Visa and Mastercard. In 2009 those ceilings were 2.95 and 3.25 percent.
1.15% the lowest rate on an ordinary purchase in 2026, on both networks. The GAO recorded 0.95 percent at Visa and 0.90 percent at Mastercard in 2009, so the cheap end of interchange has been withdrawn.
0.40% and 0.19% the lowest Visa and Mastercard rates if commercial large ticket and money movement programs are counted in. They are not available on an ordinary purchase and are not comparable with 2009.
roughly 1,040 rate cells across both networks’ full US schedules once debit, prepaid, commercial and flat fee rates are counted in. A different measure from 640, and not one that can be set against the GAO’s 303.
| Domestic credit interchange categories | 1991 | 2009 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa | 4 | 60 | 378 |
| Mastercard | 4 | 243 | 262 |
| Combined | 8 | 303 | 640 |
The 1991 and 2009 figures are the GAO’s, as reported. The 2026 figures are ours, counted on the same basis.
The number of ways a US credit card transaction can be priced has more than doubled since the last time anyone counted, and is up eighty-fold since 1991.
This is the part that has not been reported. In seventeen years Mastercard added 19 categories, a rise of 8%. Visa added 318, a rise of 530%.
Coverage of interchange complexity almost always treats the two networks as a single phenomenon. On the numbers they have not behaved the same way at all. Whatever drove the expansion between 1991 and 2009 stopped at Mastercard and kept going at Visa.
| Section of the Visa schedule | Programs | Card tiers | Categories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Credit, Card Present | 25 | 6 | 148 |
| Consumer Credit, Card Not Present | 18 | 6 | 108 |
| Consumer Credit, Small Merchant | 12 | 6 | 72 |
| Corporate & Purchasing | 20 | 1 | 20 |
| Business Credit | 6 | 5 | 30 |
| Total | 81 | 378 |
The mechanism is visible in the layout of the document itself. Visa names 81 programs. Every consumer program is then priced across six card columns: Infinite Spend Qualified, Infinite Spend Not Qualified, Signature Preferred, Signature, Traditional Rewards, and All Other. The same set of programs is restated a second time for card-not-present transactions, and a third time for small merchants. Eighty-one names become 378 prices.
Two cells in the card-present table are marked not applicable and are excluded, which is why that row reads 148 rather than 150.
Two numbers matter to a merchant: the worst rate a transaction can be assigned, and the best one available. Both moved between 2009 and 2026, and neither moved the way the category count would suggest.
The highest rate is where a downgraded transaction lands. It is the number that appears on a statement when something fails to qualify for the category it was supposed to reach.
| Highest rate | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 (GAO) | 1.91% | 2.08% |
| 2009 (GAO) | 2.95% | 3.25% |
| 2026 (this study) | 3.15% | 3.30% |
In 1991 neither network could charge more than 2.08% on a domestic credit transaction. Both are now above 3.15%. Visa’s ceiling has risen 0.20 points since 2009; Mastercard’s has risen 0.05.
On both networks the ceiling is the Non-Qualified or Standard rate, the bucket a transaction falls into when data is missing, settlement is late, or the card type was not what the terminal assumed. It is the most expensive outcome and it is also the one a merchant has the least visibility into.
| Lowest rate | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 (GAO) | 1.25% | 1.30% |
| 2009 (GAO) | 0.95% | 0.90% |
| 2026 (this study) | 1.15% | 1.15% |
This is the part that gets missed. Between 1991 and 2009 the floor fell on both networks, from around 1.25% to around 0.90%. Since 2009 it has gone back up. Both networks now bottom out at exactly 1.15%.
The cheap end of interchange has been withdrawn. A merchant achieving the best available qualification in 2009 paid less than one a merchant achieving the best available qualification today. The discount that came with doing everything right has shrunk by about a quarter of a point, on both networks, at the same time as the penalty for doing something wrong got larger.
The floor above is the lowest rate on an ordinary purchase. It deliberately excludes two kinds of rate that are numerically lower but are not available to a merchant taking normal card payments:
Counting those in, Visa’s floor is 0.40% and Mastercard’s is 0.19%. Quoting either as “the lowest interchange rate” alongside a 2009 figure that almost certainly did not include them would overstate the change, so this study does not do it.
Both answers are set out below, because the floor is the most contestable judgment in this study and anyone checking the work needs to know which basis a figure is on.
| Lowest rate, 2026, by basis | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer credit, ordinary purchase. The basis comparable with the GAO figures for 1991 and 2009 | 1.15% | 1.15% |
| All in, including commercial large ticket and money movement programs. Not comparable with 2009 | 0.40% | 0.19% |
Where this study quotes a floor without qualification, it means the first row. The count works the same way: 640 is the GAO basis, and the all in figure of roughly 1,040 rate cells measures something else. The answer depends on the counting rule, which is why this study publishes its rule and not only its total.
| Distance from floor to ceiling | Visa | Mastercard |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 (GAO) | 0.66 pts | 0.78 pts |
| 2009 (GAO) | 2.00 pts | 2.35 pts |
| 2026 (this study) | 2.00 pts | 2.15 pts |
The widening happened between 1991 and 2009, when the gap roughly tripled on both networks. It has not continued. Visa’s spread is unchanged since 2009 and Mastercard’s has narrowed slightly. The story of the last seventeen years is not a range that keeps stretching. It is a range that has picked itself up and moved upward at both ends.
Why a merchant should care about a category count
A category is a place a transaction can land. Visa multiplied the number of places by six. Both networks then raised the floor and the ceiling together, so the best outcome is worse than it was in 2009 and the worst outcome is more expensive. More places to land, every one of them priced higher than its 2009 equivalent, and no way to see from a statement which one any given transaction reached. That last part is the whole problem.
The point of this study is that the 2026 figures can be compared to the GAO’s. That only holds if they are counted the same way, so the GAO’s rule is reproduced here in full and applied without modification.
“Any additional transaction fees or rates that were not based on a percentage of the total sales amount were excluded from this analysis. For example, Visa has a flat fee of 75 cents for payments accepted by utility companies.”
GAO-10-45, note to Table 2. The table title further scopes the count to domestic credit cards.
A small confirmation that the rule still fits. The GAO note gave one worked example of a rate it excluded, a Visa flat fee of 75 cents for payments accepted by utility companies. Seventeen years later that program is still in the Visa schedule, still called CPS/Utility, and still priced at exactly $0.75. The exclusion written in 2009 lands on the same line item in 2026, which is a useful sign that the two counts are measuring the same thing.
A rate is counted if all five hold:
Also excluded: the negative card-not-present incentive modifiers in the Visa schedule (−0.05%, −0.10%, −0.15%), which adjust a rate rather than being one.
The GAO did not publish its row-level working, so its 2009 figures cannot be independently re-derived. They are cited as reported.
Counting one program applied to one card tier as one category is the only reading that reproduces Mastercard’s 243 for 2009, and it is applied identically to both networks here. If the GAO instead counted Visa at the program-name level, the comparable 2026 figure for Visa is 81 named programs rather than 378, still a 35% increase. Both numbers are published for that reason.
Counting every published rate cell across both networks’ full US schedules, counting credit, debit, prepaid and commercial and both percentage-based and flat, gives roughly 1,040: about 639 for Visa and 403 for Mastercard.
That is closer to what a merchant actually faces, and it is the likely source of the “about a thousand interchange rates” figure that circulates without attribution. It is not the same measure as the GAO’s 303 and must never be compared to it. Where this study says 640, it means the GAO basis.
weAudit, Interchange Category Study: counting Visa and Mastercard rate categories on the GAO’s 2009 basis, August 2026. https://weaudit.com/resources/interchange-category-study/
Journalists and researchers are welcome to reproduce the tables with attribution. If you want the extracted source text and the counting scripts in order to check the figures, ask and we will send them.
640 across Visa and Mastercard, counting domestic credit and percentage based rates only, which is the basis the GAO used in 2009. Visa accounts for 378 of them and Mastercard for 262. Counting every rate cell in both networks’ full US schedules, including debit, prepaid, commercial and flat fee rates, gives roughly 1,040. That is a different measure and cannot be set against the GAO figure of 303.
Visa, and that is a reversal. The GAO counted 60 categories at Visa and 243 at Mastercard in 2009. In April 2026 Visa has 378 and Mastercard has 262. Visa is up 530 percent over that period and Mastercard is up 8 percent.
3.30 percent on Mastercard and 3.15 percent on Visa. On both networks that ceiling is the Standard or Non Qualified bucket, where a transaction lands when it fails to qualify for the category it should have reached.
1.15 percent on both networks for an ordinary purchase. Counting in commercial large ticket and money movement programs gives 0.40 percent on Visa and 0.19 percent on Mastercard, but those programs are not available to a merchant taking normal card payments and the 2009 figures almost certainly did not include them.
Twice a year, in April and October, when both networks publish revised schedules. Every count is a snapshot with a date attached, and this one is April 2026.
Six hundred and forty categories is not an abstraction. It is the number of buckets your transactions are sorted into before anyone adds a markup, and the sorting happens where you cannot see it. If you want to know which ones your business is actually landing in, that is what a statement shows, once someone reads it properly. We put five of them side by side in what a Fiserv statement shows and what it hides.
Related reading: what interchange rates actually cost and how to read a merchant statement.
Read More Check out our other insights here
Some credit card processors use a quiet tactic known as “enhanced billing.” They quote you a low discount rate to win the account, then inflate the interchange rate underneath it, the fee charged to process each transaction. For a merchant without a deep understanding of th
CCIS stands for Commercial Card Interchange Service. The quickest way to understand it is to follow the chain, because each term is really defined by the next.
