Interchange Fees Explained: What Card Networks Charge
The biggest single layer of every card transaction. Set by the network, paid to the issuer, identical across merchants of the same profile.
Reg II cap: Federal Reserve, federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/regii-about.htm. Visa assessment 0.13% and Visa US interchange schedule: usa.visa.com Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees (PDF). Mastercard assessment 0.1375% and US interchange schedule: mastercard.us merchant interchange rates. The 1.51% to 3.30% credit-card range is the published spread between qualified consumer credit and corporate/premium-rewards categories in the same Visa and Mastercard schedules.
Interchange is paid to the bank that issued your customer's card, not to the processor or the card network. It is the single biggest line of every card transaction. US debit interchange is capped by Federal Reserve Regulation II at $0.21 + 0.05% per regulated transaction. US credit interchange ranges from roughly 1.51% to 3.30% depending on card type (basic vs rewards vs corporate), channel (card-present vs online), and verification (AVS, CVV, 3DS).
Interchange by network, illustrative bands
| Feature | Visa | Mastercard | Amex | Discover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regulated debit (capped) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unregulated debit | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Consumer credit basic | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rewards credit | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Corporate / commercial | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Published full schedule | ✓ | ✓ | ◐ | ✓ |
Visa and Mastercard publish full interchange schedules online twice a year (April and October). Amex publishes “OptBlue” (acquirer-routed) rates separately from direct-merchant rates.
The Reg II regulated-debit cap
The Federal Reserve's Regulation II caps debit interchange at $0.21 + 0.05% per transaction for issuers with over $10B in assets. Smaller issuers are exempt. The cap drives the cost-saving rationale for accepting US debit at any merchant: a $100 debit transaction costs about $0.26 in interchange vs $2.50+ on a rewards credit card.
The Reg II cap on regulated debit (issuers above $10B in assets) has remained the binding ceiling on US debit interchange since the rule took effect in October 2011. The Federal Reserve's October 2023 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposed cutting the base component to $0.144 + 0.04%, but that rule has not been finalized. In August 2025 a federal district court in North Dakota vacated the Reg II fee standard outright, then stayed its own ruling pending appeal, so the $0.21 + 0.05% cap remains in force as of 2026. No comparable cap has ever applied to credit-card interchange. See the Federal Reserve's Reg II resource page: federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/regii-about.htm.
How interchange flows into your bill
- On flat-rate: invisible. Bundled into the 2.9% + 30c headline.
- On interchange-plus: shown as the first component (e.g. 'IC + 0.30%').
- On tiered: hidden inside the qualified/mid/non-qualified bucket assignment.
- On subscription: shown explicitly, with 0% markup over interchange plus per-transaction cents.
What raises your blended interchange rate
- Shift in customer card mix toward rewards or premium cards.
- Higher share of online (CNP) vs in-person, which carries higher interchange.
- Manually keyed transactions, which trigger the highest interchange categories.
- Lower with AVS-verified card-present, regulated debit, and basic consumer credit.