VAMP Thresholds: What Merchants Must Know Before April 2026

The minimum event count matters as much as the ratio. Smaller merchants processing fewer than 1,500 fraud reports and disputes per month won't trigger Merchant Excessive status regardless of their percentage. However, acquirers may still impose stricter internal limits to protect their portfolio compliance.

Enumeration thresholds (card testing fraud) remain consistent at 20% across regions, but the minimum authorization count threshold varies between 300,000 and 500,000, depending on local issuer volumes.

Consequences of Exceeding VAMP Thresholds

VAMP enforcement carries financial and operational consequences that scale with severity and duration.

Direct Visa penalties (after October 1, 2025):

• Merchants Excessive: $8 per fraudulent or disputed transaction
• Acquirers Above Standard: $4 per transaction
• Acquirers Excessive: $8 per transaction

First-time offenders receive a three-month grace period, but repeat violations within 12 months are subject to immediate enforcement.

Acquirer-imposed restrictions: Many acquirers enforce merchant thresholds lower than Visa's official limits to protect their portfolio. Your processor might set an internal cap at 1.0% or 1.2% to maintain a cushion below the 0.5% acquirer threshold. Common restrictions include:

• Higher reserve requirements (10-20% of monthly volume held)
• Increased per-transaction fees
• Mandatory enrollment in compliance programs
• Account review or probation periods
• Immediate termination for repeat violations

Am I at risk?

To determine your risk level, use this quick assessment framework:

1. Calculate your monthly TC40 + TC15 count (request reports from your acquirer)
2. Divide by your total CNP transactions
3. If you're above 1.8%, you need immediate intervention
4. If you're between 1.2 and 1.8%, implement prevention tools now
5. If you're below 1.2%, maintain current protocols but monitor trends

How to Reduce Your VAMP Ratio

Reducing your VAMP ratio requires a prevention-first approach that stops disputes before they are included in Visa's calculation.

Deploy early-resolution tools: Verifi RDR, Order Insight, and Ethoca Alerts remove disputes from your VAMP count entirely when resolved before chargeback. These tools prevent friendly fraud by providing transaction details directly to issuers before customers escalate the issue.

Leverage Compelling Evidence 3.0: CE 3.0 removes both the TC40 report and the dispute from your ratio when you successfully prove the cardholder used the product or service. This is the only tool that eliminates TC40s retroactively.

Strengthen fraud prevention: Take the following steps to improve your fraud protection infrastructure:

• Implement 3D Secure 2.0 for high-risk transactions
• Use velocity checks to catch card testing
• Deploy machine learning fraud scoring
• Require CVV verification on all CNP transactions

Optimize your payment stack: SeamlessChex provides built-in chargeback management tools that integrate with Verifi and Ethoca networks. Our platform monitors your VAMP ratio in real-time across your 25+ banking relationships, automatically routing transactions to acquirers with capacity. This prevents concentration risk that could push you over the threshold with a single processor.

The chargeback guarantee we offer helps prevent disputes from affecting VAMP calculations by resolving them before Visa counts the transaction. Our white-glove support team identifies patterns driving your disputes and implements custom solutions based on your industry, whether you're in gaming, nutraceuticals, or high-risk ecommerce.

VAMP Enforcement Timeline

April 1, 2025: VAMP launched, advisory period began 

June 1, 2025: Updated thresholds took effect 

September 30, 2025: Advisory period ended 

October 1, 2025: Merchant Excessive enforcement began 

January 1, 2026: Acquirer Above Standard enforcement begins 

April 1, 2026: Merchant Excessive threshold drops to 1.5% (US/Canada/EU)

Merchants have less than four months before the stricter 1.5% threshold takes effect. If your current ratio sits above 1.5%, start implementing prevention tools immediately. The migration from 2.2% to 1.5% represents a ~32% reduction in acceptable dispute volume.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I access my TC40 data directly?

Most merchants cannot view TC40 reports directly. Request monthly TC40 data from your acquirer or through Verifi. If unavailable, proxy TC40 counts using resolved fraud disputes from RDR, CDRN, and Ethoca combined with fraud chargeback data.

Do card-present transactions count toward VAMP?

No. VAMP ratios only include card-not-present (CNP) transactions. In-person card-present purchases are excluded from all calculations.

What happens if my processor terminates my account for VAMP violations?

Account termination goes on your MATCH list (Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants), making it difficult to obtain processing with other acquirers. You may need to work with high-risk processors that charge higher rates and require larger reserves.

How do acquirer portfolio averages affect individual merchants?

Acquirers must maintain portfolio-wide compliance below 0.5% (Above Standard) and 0.7% (Excessive). To stay compliant, most processors enforce merchant-level caps between 1.0-1.5%—well below Visa's 2.2% merchant threshold.

Take Action Now with SeamlessChex

VAMP thresholds enforce accountability across the payments ecosystem. Merchants who wait until they receive warning letters have already damaged their processor relationships and face immediate restrictions.

The path forward requires proactive monitoring, prevention-first tools, and partnerships with processors who understand high-risk verticals. SeamlessChex specializes in merchants that traditional processors won't support, offering next-day ACH funding, transaction routing across multiple banking relationships, and integrated chargeback management that keeps your VAMP ratio compliant.

Apply now to speak with our payment experts about VAMP thresholds and compliant processing solutions designed for gaming, CBD, nutraceuticals, and other challenging industries.