VAMP April 2026 Update: North America 1.5% Excessive Threshold
Visa tightened the North America VAMP excessive threshold from 1.8% to 1.5% effective April 2026. For merchants who previously sat comfortably in the 1.5% to 1.8% band, the change is overnight: Standard or Above Standard 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 PDF. Visa typically publishes threshold-change announcements through acquirer bulletins 4 to 6 months before implementation.
What did not change
- •VAMP ratio formula. Still (TC40 fraud reports + TC15 disputes) / TC05 settled transactions. Count-based, not dollar-based.
- •Above Standard threshold. Stayed at 0.9% in North America. Merchants 0.9% to 1.5% are now in a wider Above Standard band than before.
- •EU and APAC thresholds. Largely unchanged at this revision; review the regional bulletins for any per-region tightening.
- •Mastercard ECM thresholds. Separate program. Mastercard ECM excessive threshold remains at 1.0% with the 100 chargeback per month minimum.
- •Monitoring period duration. 4 to 12 month standard monitoring period before formal exit determination.
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 North America 1.5% threshold also brings the region closer to EU and APAC norms. The earlier 1.8% threshold was a 2025 transitional level after VAMP consolidated VDMP and VFMP; the April 2026 step takes the program closer to its long-run equilibrium.
Who is most affected
Three cohorts feel the change immediately. The threshold move is binary: standing at 1.6% one month and 1.5% the next is the same operationally before April 2026; after April 2026 it is the difference between Standard and Excessive.
Shift from Standard or Above Standard into Excessive overnight. Acquirer monitoring begins immediately; first fine assessment in the month of crossing.
Within Above Standard. No immediate fine but acquirer monitoring intensifies. Should 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.
Fine schedule for Excessive status
Fines are charged to the acquirer and typically passed through to the merchant. Fine amounts below are the published Visa schedule; some acquirers add their own surcharge.
Fines are not the only cost: acquirer fund holds, processing-rate increases, MATCH-list risk at termination, and the operational distraction of a remediation program all add to the total impact. A 12-month Excessive stay can cost a mid-size merchant $250,000 to $500,000 in direct fines and indirect costs.
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.