VAMP April 2026 Update: North America 1.5% Excessive Threshold
Visa tightened the merchant excessive VAMP ratio threshold from 2.2% to 1.5% for the US, Canada, Europe and AP, effective 1 April 2026. For merchants who previously sat in the 1.5% to 2.2% band, the change is overnight: compliant one month, Excessive the next. Here is what changed, who is affected, and what to do about it.
What changed
Source: Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program Fact Sheet, footnote 5: the Excessive Merchant threshold reduces to 150bps in AP, Canada, EU and the US on 1 April 2026.
What did not change
- •VAMP ratio formula. Still (TC40 fraud reports + TC15 disputes) / TC05 settled transactions. Count-based, not dollar-based. Disputes resolved through pre-dispute tools and TC40s qualifying for Compelling Evidence 3.0 are excluded.
- •Minimum case count. A merchant still needs 1,500 or more fraud and dispute cases a month to be enrolled, so low-volume merchants are not caught on ratio alone.
- •Acquirer thresholds. Acquirer portfolios remain at 50bps (Above Standard) and 70bps (Excessive); the April 2026 change only moves the merchant excessive threshold.
- •Other regions. LAC was already at 1.5%; CEMEA stays at 2.2% (with its own minimum-count and value rules).
- •Mastercard ECM thresholds. Separate program. Mastercard ECM triggers at a 1.5% chargeback ratio with the 100 chargeback per month minimum (HECM at 3.0% with 300+).
Why Visa tightened the threshold
Visa's stated rationale in the acquirer bulletin is that aggregate dispute rates across the Visa network have risen since 2020, driven by the growth of card-not-present transactions and the friendly-fraud share. The threshold change is part of a broader regulatory tightening that also includes the FTC Click-to-Cancel Rule (effective July 2024), MRC member pressure for stronger merchant accountability, and the European PSD2 / Strong Customer Authentication framework.
The 2.2% merchant threshold was a transitional level set when the updated VAMP took effect on 1 June 2025 (with an advisory period through 30 September 2025) after the program consolidated VDMP and VFMP. The 1 April 2026 step to 1.5% takes North America to the same merchant threshold already used in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Who is most affected
Three cohorts feel the change immediately. The threshold move is binary: a merchant at 1.6% (with 1,500+ cases a month) was compliant before April 2026 and is Excessive after it.
Compliant before April 2026, Excessive after it (if they also clear the 1,500-case minimum). The $8-per-dispute fee begins; acquirer review and reserve pressure follow.
Still under the threshold, but with little headroom. No VAMP fee yet, though acquirers often impose tighter internal limits. Treat the April 2026 change as a near miss and accelerate prevention work.
Digital goods (typical 1.2-2.0%), gaming (1.5-3.0%), travel (0.8-1.5%), subscription services (0.8-1.5%). Categories disproportionately positioned around or above the new threshold. Specialised high-risk processors with VAMP-experienced acquirers are often safer than mainstream processors.
What Excessive status costs
VAMP does not levy fixed monthly fines on merchants. The headline charge is a per-dispute fee of $8 on every fraud and non-fraud dispute once you are enrolled, charged to the acquirer and typically passed through. The bigger cost is usually everything that travels with it.
Worked example: a merchant taking 1,500 disputes a month pays about $12,000 a month in VAMP fees alone (1,500 x $8), before the underlying merchandise, shipping, and labour losses on each chargeback and before any reserve hold or repricing. That is why pulling the ratio back under 1.5% quickly matters more than fighting individual disputes.
What affected merchants should do
- 1.Audit your VAMP ratio trajectory. Pull the last 6 months month-by-month. Identify whether your trend is rising, flat, or improving. Acquirers under VAMP look at trajectory, not just point-in-time numbers.
- 2.Identify your highest-volume reason code. Friendly fraud (cancelled recurring, cardholder does not recognise, product not as described) responds to different interventions than third-party fraud (Visa 10.4 / Mastercard 4837). The right prevention move depends on the dispute mix.
- 3.Implement prevention tooling. 3D Secure 2 for fraud-coded disputes (70-80% reduction). Verifi RDR and Ethoca CDRN for pre-dispute alert resolution (30-50% pre-chargeback resolution rate). Billing-descriptor clarity and renewal-reminder emails for friendly fraud.
- 4.Submit a remediation plan to your acquirer. Acquirers under VAMP Excessive are required to submit acquirer-level remediation evidence. Your plan needs to be credible: specific interventions, timelines, expected ratio reductions, and reporting cadence.
- 5.Consider specialised acquirers. If your category structurally sits above 1.5%, mainstream acquirers will impose escalating restrictions. A specialised high-risk acquirer accustomed to VAMP-band merchants is often more workable than fighting mainstream-acquirer tolerance.