Credit Card Decline CodesThe Top 10 Most Common Codes & How to Respond to Each

What Triggers a Credit Card Decline Code? What Do You Do About Them?

Picture this: you’re at the store with a cart full of items. You head for the checkout line, but when you dip your card into the terminal to pay, the charge is declined.

It’s happened to everyone at least once. Still, it can be humiliating if you’re a cardholder. What you may not really consider, though, is that getting credit card decline codes is even less fun if you’re the merchant.

As a merchant, a declined card means losing out on a sale that was already in the bag. It’s a real bummer. So, why do banks even decline customers’ cards in the first place? What are some of the potential reasons, and what can you do to recover the sale in question?

Let’s find out.

What are Credit Card Decline Codes?

Credit Card Decline Code

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A credit card decline code is a negative message issued in response to a request for authorization during a transaction. This occurs when a payment can’t be processed for a specific reason; it may be declined by the processor or payment gateway, or by the customer’s issuing bank.

A transaction doesn’t automatically gain approval after the customer swipes a card or hits “submit.” Instead, your processor takes that transaction information and relays it to the issuing bank for approval. In most cases, the bank will provide authorization, clearing the way to finalize the sale. That said, the bank might also decline transactions that raise certain red flags.

When a card gets declined, most people assume it’s for one of two key reasons: fraud or insufficient funds. In reality, however, there are literally dozens of reasons why an institution might decline your customer’s card transaction. The bank will provide a two-digit credit card decline code as part of their response to explain why they didn’t authorize the sale.

Credit Card Decline Code Triggers

The first thing you need to know is that not every transaction decline results from a lack of funds or criminal fraud.

Many declines can be triggered by system errors, merchant input errors, or simple communication errors between banks and processors. In other cases, the card itself could be the problem. After all, it’s just a piece of plastic that will eventually wear down over time.

All that being said, there are obviously some credit card decline code triggers that are more common than others. Here are some recurring issues that you might see pop up most often to cause decline codes:

• Credit card verification error: The card used could have a faulty microchip or magnetic stripe, which would require manual input.
• Expired Card: Some people hang on to cards longer than they should. As a result, they might not realize their card has expired.
• Insufficient funds: The cardholder doesn’t have the funds available in their bank account to cover the transaction.
• Transaction not permitted: The authorized cardholder has blocked certain online transactions, or has set a manual  payment limit.
• Exceeded credit limit: The cardholder does not have enough of their existing credit limit available to make a purchase.
• Incorrect security code: The cardholder entered the wrong CVV number. This is usually a manual entry issue, but could be a sign of fraud.
• Invalid card number: Either the issuing bank can’t be recognized by the routing information provided, or the card number provided is not tied to a valid account.
• Invalid transaction: Often, this is because a card number was punched in incorrectly or the card was misread by the scanner.

These are just a few examples of the decline triggers you can expect as a merchant. To be frank, there are a lot of decline codes to sort through. They range from run of the mill errors all the way to fraudulent and outright stolen cards.

We’ll get to the full list of codes further down. If you want the truth, though: most of those codes are pretty obscure and rarely used.

There’s only a small handful of card decline codes you’ll typically run into in your day-to-day operations. With that in mind, let’s run down the ten most common decline codes and how you should respond to them.

10 Most Common Credit Card Decline Codes & How to Respond

Quick preface: credit card decline codes are not fully standardized. They can differ from one payment gateway to the next, so there may be some redundancies in the codes. They also tend to be rather vague, as this helps protect the cardholder’s privacy and avoid giving away sensitive information in the event of a genuine fraud attack.

With that out of the way, here’s the list:

Code 05 | Do not honor

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Code 14 | Invalid card number

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Code 41 | Lost card, pick up

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Code 43 | Stolen card, pick up

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Code 51 | Insufficient Funds

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Code 54 | Expired card

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Code 61 | Exceeds issuer withdrawal limit

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Code 65 | Activity limit exceeded or insufficient funds

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Code 97 | Invalid CVV

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Code R0/R1 | Stop Recurring Payment

As we can see, it’s not uncommon for different parties to issue credit card decline codes that aren’t necessarily indicative of fraud or a lack of funds.

With these otherwise-valid transactions, you have a cardholder blocked from completing a purchase. This can immediately turn buyers away, driving them to your competitors. So, there’s a clear incentive to try and remove roadblocks that could prevent an authorization, or which might lead to an authorization reversal.

Complete List of Credit Card Decline Codes

Below, you’ll find a list of all the credit card codes you might run into, as reported by Visa:

Code	Description
0	Approved and completed successfully
1	Refer to card issuer
2	Refer to card issuer, special condition
3	Invalid merchant
4	Pick up card (no fraud)
5	Do not honor
6	Error
7	Pick up card, special condition (fraud acct.)
10	Partial approval
11	Approved (VIP)
12	Invalid transaction
13	Invalid amount or currency conversion field overflow
14	Invalid account number (no such number)
15	No such issuer
19	Re-enter transaction
21	No action taken
25	Unable to locate record in file
28	File temporarily not available for update or inquiry
39	No credit account
41	Lost card, pick up (fraud acct.)
43	Stolen card, pick up (fraud acct.)
51	Not sufficient funds
52	No checking account
53	No savings account
54	Expired card or expiration date missing
55	Incorrect PIN or PIN missing
57	Transaction not permitted to cardholder
59	Suspected fraud
61	Exceeds approval amount limit
62	Restricted card (invalid in region/country)
63	Security violation (not correct issuer)
64	Transaction does not fulfill AML requirement
65	Exceeds withdrawal frequency limit
75	Allowable number of PIN entry tries exceeded
76	Unsolicited reversal
79	Already reversed
80	No financial impact
81	Cryptographic error found in PIN
82	Negative CAM, dCVV, iCVV, or CVV results
85	No reason to decline request for address verification, CVV2 verification, or a credit voucher or merchandise return
86	Cannot verify PIN
89	Ineligible to receive financial position information (GIV)
91	Issuer or switch inoperative and STIP not applicable or not available for this transaction; Time-out when no stand-in; POS Check Service: Destination unavailable; Credit Voucher and Merchandise Return Authorizations: V.I.P. sent the transaction to the issuer, but the issuer was unavailable
92	Financial Institution or intermediate network facility cannot be found for routing
93	Transaction cannot be completed – violation of law
94	Duplicate transmission
96	System malfunction or certain field error conditions
B2	Surcharge amount not supported by debit network issuer
N0	Force STIP
N3	Cash service not available
N4	Cash request exceeds issuer or approved limit
N5	Ineligible for resubmission
N7	Decline for CVV2 failure
N8	Transaction amount exceeds preauthorized approval amount
Q1	Card authentication failed
R0	Stop payment order

Distinguishing “Hard” & “Soft” Declines

False declines cost merchants $443 billion in 2021. Shocking as that number may be…it’s probably a lot higher for this year already.

Most of these sales were legitimate, but the merchants in question wrote them off because they received credit card decline codes. It’s probably happened to you many times: a transaction seemed a little sketchy, and you ended up declining a valid shopper.

A credit card decline code doesn’t necessarily mean you should write the transaction off as a loss, though. You have the power to recover some of these lost sales. The first step is to distinguish between so-called “hard” and “soft” declines. There are different approaches you can take to respond in these situations.

What is a Soft Decline?

A soft decline occurs when the issuing bank connected to a transaction approves the payment, but there’s a problem at some other point in the process. For instance, if a payment gateway is down at the time a customer submits a transaction, it could cause a soft decline.

Your payment gateway will let you choose to block, flag, or accept soft declines. Thus, you have some influence over the credit card decline codes you receive that are attached to a soft decline.

The key to balancing due diligence and accessibility is to be reasonably sure that a transaction is valid, which means implementing a multilayer strategy to manage fraud. For instance, your strategy should include:

• Address Verification Service (AVS)
• CVV verification
• Velocity checks
• Geolocation
• 3-D Secure 2.0 technology

The tools listed above gauge different potential fraud indicators with little-to-no impact on customer-facing friction. When combined with fraud scoring and manual reviews of transactions, these tools offer a much more detailed and dynamic picture of the individual submitting a transaction.

What is a Hard Decline?

Unlike its counterpart, a hard decline takes control completely out of your hands. A hard decline occurs when the bank does not approve the transaction.

The only way to resolve one of these is to try addressing the issue that caused the transaction to be declined in the first place. This means interpreting the credit card decline code and developing a solution.

Here’s an example: Let’s say a charge from a loyal subscription customer may be declined because the customer has insufficient funds at that moment. One way to address this is to implement automatic retries. This means waiting a few days and reattempting to charge the card. Most merchant processors allow you to implement this practice. You can also try offering alternate payment options like PayPal or Apple Pay. This is an easy way to recover sales.

For other hard credit card decline codes (expired payment card, invalid card number, etc.), it could be helpful to reach out to the customer via email. Inform the buyer of the problem, and offer suggestions for ways to resolve the issue and recover the sale.

What if the Sale Can’t Be Recovered?

There are certain credit card decline codes from which you can’t recover a sale. The approach to take in these cases is to do your best to retain customers and entice them to make future purchases. This is where it really pays to develop a personal relationship with buyers.

Like we mentioned at the top of the post, it can be embarrassing for a legitimate buyer if their card gets declined. One way to reassure them and keep their loyalty is with a personalized response. This goes beyond a basic form template. You need to reach out and forge a personal connection with your buyer. Your email should:

With this approach, you convey to the customer that you genuinely care about them, and that you understand their problem and their pain point. Not only that, you also give them a great incentive to retry the purchase, and to continue shopping in the future.

Additionally, there are third-party services like Gravy, which are aimed at helping you recover declined transactions. Even with help, though, the core issue—the difficulty of parsing credit card decline codes—remains.

How you manage this process will impact other areas of operations, too. That’s why it’s worth giving your rejected purchases a second look.